Shatters
by M.R.Roth
Summary: Jack suffers a terrible car crash with Hiccup and Emma that launches him into a dangerous downward spiral, until he faces the ultimate choice — if Jack wants to keep living. Modern AU - Hijack/Frostcup - based on the novel WINTERGIRLS
1. Chapter 1

Total remanagement

Keep my thanks to NopNotYourFather and to DragonsxSnowflakes, who read this one first.

Enjoy ;)

"Any minute now, my heart might just stop."

 **One**

The house breathes as I stand over the kitchen table. The TV screams the words of what we missed last night. The microwave spins the food and makes its magic inside the metal box. Here stands a boy holding a knife on the right hand, walking towards the cupboard to put it on the second drawer. As I walk, the knife splits the kitchen into several pieces, making it bleed and rip up in square boxes.

Behind the kitchen table, my mom keeps reciting her guidelines of how her life is going to be today. Taking Emma to play soccer. Call Emma's nanny to take care of her as she goes to work. Attend a hundred patients. Drown her sadness on her work. However, all of it can go to hell if I do not quit zooning around when my mind starts spinning words that I cannot understand.

"…are you listening to me, Jack?" (My mom) Dr. Mary Howard stops slamming chocolate cookies inside Emma's lunch pack and looks at me. I simply nod. "So what are you going to do today?"

I sigh. "I'll pick up Emma at her practice after school". I don't even know if that is really what she said. But she nods anyway, again proving me right.

"Dr. Lawrence called yesterday." She says, and my heart skips a beat. "It's been a while since you don't go talk to him. Maybe a checkup…"

"No." I stop her from saying, splashing blood around the kitchen with the cut sentence. She looks at me with The Stare.

"That man helped you a lot before, Jack." She will try to convince me in every possible way that going to see (a joke) my therapist is a wonderful idea to put my ideas in order so everything will be great because she worries and yada-yada-yada, boring. "Just for a check up…"

"I. Am. Fine." My words could make an earthquake right here. I wish they did, so the house would collapse on my head and I would not have to listen to her shit again.

"Okay," She gets back to what she was doing. "Do you need money for lunch?" She says. I shake my head. "Alright then. Have a good day." I nod, and she kisses my cheek so lightly that I do not even feel it. "Emma, say goodbye to your brother, we're leaving in one minute."

I hear Emma's childish and girly voice yelling from the room - as loud as the TV. Dr. Mary Howard turns on her heels and disappears through the door, Emma following close, stuffing her mouth with a bag of chips. It's not even real food, just junk that adults use to keep their children in line.

"Bye wicked." I tell her, and she waves before leaving.

The kitchen has blood in the air, poison on the walls and ghosts beneath the floor. Still, I wait for another hour to leave the house. There is not much I can do. Even at twelfth grade.

Except to attend to all expectations of people who did the same things that you did, only twice harder for reasons I am not allowed to understand. So whatever I do, it is just not enough. I gave up on school rules years ago, anyway.

It's snowing outside. I get to my car, start the engine, and get out of here. I do not forget to turn on the left street at the main square. I do not take any shortcuts that will make me get there later. My timing is perfect, and I end up stuck in a traffic jam. Today is Thursday, I cannot even complain.

I arrive at school forty minutes after everyone. They say I am late. I am just in time for my standards.

I watch from inside the car as the snow slowly falls over the windows. I cannot get into the halls when everyone is there. I like to wait until the teachers slam everyone into the classrooms and start drugging them with boring lessons we. Will. Never. Use.

7:45. Time to go to school and stop thinking.

Physics is my first class. There is an awesomely boring movie telling us about the speed of light and speed of sound and other garbage that doesn't matter. We are bombed with magical particles that enters the room through the projector. That is not enough to hide the life that exist in the shadows. I don't know if I am the only one who can see them, but I know they are there. They have no face. They are just there, forcing us to don't look at them.

One of them walks up behind me and puts me to sleep.

I wake up to see the enormous green eyes smiling at me. And for a moment I forget everything I was thinking for this day.

"Are you planning to stay there all day?" Hiccup's voice reaches my ears, and suddenly my life has color.

"I was just waiting for you to rescue me." I reply, earning one of his exasperated smiles. I get up before he can be all witty on me again. Too fast, though, and gravity tries to pull me down face-first. I hold on the desk and force myself to stand, stars dancing on my eyes. We both exit the class in silence.

The corridors are full of people trying to squeeze themselves to their lockers/girlfriends/boyfriends/toilets and whatever. Some of them stare at Hiccup when he gets to his locker.

He simply ignores as the whispers spread, one toilet to another. He knows what they are saying. We both do. The voices head into both of our heads, uniting us in this thread of razor wire.

Stupid/freak/stupid/weird/stupid/useless/stupid/idiot/stupid/

ugly/stupid/loser/stupid/nerd/stupid/stupid/stupid/

We pretend we cannot hear it. There is no use. I stuff my locker with the few books I will never use, and Hiccup grabs his dark sketchbook. At the thick line of visible skin between his hand and his sleeves, I see thin white lines of the scars on his wrists.

It took him a few months to tell me about his cuts. I had to beg him to show mw after a fight he had with his parents. He did not talk to me for three days after his fight, and I had to break into his house. His mother would not stop crying, and his dad had that robot expression on his face that he uses when he has no idea of what to do. He must be pretty dumb to use that expression all the time.

I found Hiccup hiding in his room. Curtains closed for what felt like ages of lack of sunlight. He scolded me as I begged him to show me his scars, and after ten rolls of " _I won't judge you, it's okay, I am not mad_ ", he angrily took off his shirt to show me his skin. It happened that his whole body was a canvas, and there were so many lines coming out of his torso, ribs, arms, and escaping from the band of his tights that we both ended up crying. It happened right under everyone's nose, and no one never noticed.

He is secretive about it now. He lies and pretends he does not cut. I pretend I believe it. He pretends he does not see I am pretending.

"What are you going to do today?" He says.

"I'm picking up Emma from her soccer practice today, and then we can do something." I offer. He smiles.

The classes go like a dream, and it is like if someone else has slipped inside my mind and took over the basic commands of my body, making me walk, sit, roll up and beg, don't sleep at the first ten minutes, then move on to the next class. I have two classes with Hiccup.

At lunch, I join him on the farthest table so we can eat our food. It tastes like the smell of a hospital bathroom. Hiccup draws on the table as he eats, and I cannot stop myself from looking at him the whole time as he makes a magnificent sketch of a black dragon. I look at his freckled hands, at his blushed cheeks and his concentrated expression. My eyes photograph all of his features, even though I have known him for years. I _do_ this for years. Part of me believes he'll never know.

I drift on my thoughts. I swear one day I will get so lost in my own thoughts that I will open a whole in space-time and drift to this wonderland I call imagination land. People will see a boy with white hair and blue eyes collapsing on the street, or on his desk, or in the worst case driving. It could happen even when I am talking directly to someone. Doctors would appear and declare my body dead, but my mind would be alive. They would slam me inside a machine, would turn into a sick robot and I would instantly write a hundred stories.

The image of Hiccup drawing is doing this to my brain.

~ø~

I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of Shatters. The book that this is based on is _Wintergirls_ \- Trigger Warning, dear, don't do it if you're feeling depressed, suicidal or going through major mental health problems. Search for help. If you'd like to know more about me, check out my photography Instagram: @ _hgoallan_

 **I'm also on /gohallan**


	2. Chapter 2

**Two**

The rest of the day is like a blur again. I head out of class, disappear into the crowd and keep my head down until I find the first toilet to escape from all of these people. I look into my phone. Check out the time. There is plenty of time for me to catch Emma at her practice, drop her home and get in the car again with Hiccup.

I look in the mirror as I count the minutes. A ghost stares at me through the glass. He look just like Jackson Overland. The same white hair, the same blue eyes, the same height: tall enough. But he is not him. He is some impostor who took Jackson's place and who mimics him very well. One minute. Jack's doppelganger is still staring at me. Two minutes. Three. I am starting to think that I will be stuck here forever with Jackson's ghost trapped in the mirror.

I leave after five minutes. The corridors are now finally empty, save for one or two people with a shining future ahead of them who stick to extra-curricular activities and actually study for something. They're covered in bruises and stickers, or are dripping toilet water from their hair. Victims of the laws of physics, who clearly states that no action happens with no reaction. Study, and then be bullied. Be pretty to be envied. Be short like Hiccup and disappear from the horizon line. Be tall and hit your head on the doorframe or have your neck cut out by the fan on the ceiling.

The nerds on the hall still smile for each other. I envy them.

Hiccup is on the floor when I reach my car. There is blood dripping from his right eyebrow, his small hands pressing his forehead. A few years ago, that would have scared me. But it sort of became a routine.

I sit on my knees next to him, grabbing his wrist to pull his hand off his eye. The cut is small and not very deep. Probably won't need stiches. I pick up some snow of the ground he's seated and place it on his hands. He press the snow on his forehead.

"Come on; let's get to the car to patch you up." I say, and I take his hand to help him to stand. "Did they hit you anywhere else?" I ask. He shakes his head.

I mentally slap myself for staying on that stupid toilet for so long. He does not let go of my hand as I open the car for him to get in. I close the door, and reach to the driver's seat, jumping in and opening the glove compartment. I grab a small first-aid kit. Originally, I would hate to walk around with it, but (mom) Dr. Mary Howard thinks it is best to keep one close ALWAYS. I mean, what could happen to Emma, right?

Nevertheless, they come in handy these days. I clean him up, lightly pressing white tissues on his eyebrow. Hiccup frowns with the now familiar pain, but does not push my hand away. I strap a small bandage over the cut.

"There you go."

"Thanks." He mumbles.

I look at him for a while. His expression reflects all the words that they surely yelled at him today

Stupid/freak/stupid/weird/stupid/useless/stupid/idiot/stupid/

Ugly/stupid/loser/stupid/nerd/stupid/stupid/stupid/

but he simply frowns and stare at his feet. I put one hand over his farthest shoulder, gingerly pulling him close to me. My nose touches the skin on his neck, scenting his smell. Something between wood and new books. I curse the heavy feeling on my chest and push away the wish of pull his chin to kiss him on the lips. I could do it. But I won't.

Emma is waiting for ten minutes when I finally get there. I count the money on my wallet, making sure of buying her some ice cream to keep her mouth shut so she will not tell (mom) Dr. Mary Howard so I do not have to face or hear or feel her rage as she shows how once again I am the route of all the problems. We stop at McDonalds on the way home.

She chuckles at Hiccup as I drive. They both start talking about how awesome her match was last Saturday, even though she hardly reached the ball. He makes several funny faces at her and makes a hundred jokes about how soccer makes no sense. She laughs at all of his jokes, and so do I when he shows his inextinguishable sarcasm. He sees me chuckling once, and I turn my eyes to the road, certainly blushing.

"Don't tell mom I got there late." I say when we are almost (home) at mom's house.

"Uh-huh."

"Seriously, she'll yell."

"I got it, don't tell or she'll yell." Her eyes fixed on Hiccup. So would mine if I were on the back seat taking ice cream after soccer practice.

"See you later, wicked." I tell her, and she grins at me. We have plenty of time until her ballet class.

After she jumps out of the car to the entrance garden, I look at Hiccup.

"So… where now?" I say.

He stares through the windshield for a moment. "We could go to the mall, maybe?"

I nod, starting the car and getting some distance from (home) the Hell on Earth. Hiccup raises his voice as he sings all the weirdest songs in the radio. He raises his arms, waves them above his head at the slow beat of a pop/electronic/trashy song, but he still makes me smile. His movements are a bit out of time and he misses some notes here and there, but it is not something ugly to see. Not for me. Especially when the singer uses a sexy chest voice, making Hiccup wave his arms in airy circles along with his torso.

I have to stop looking at him.

We reach the mall in record time. It is still snowing outside when we get there, but there is a fairly large amount of people, which is good. We get lost in all the geeky shops, daydreaming and then writing love songs at every newest/incredible/awesome and impossibly expensive games that (Hiccup) we adore.

There is not any movie recently released that we have not watched yet. So we just hang around, drinking those daddy-sized milk shakes and laughing at all the weird things we see in stores and people and other nonsenses.

"How is your dad, by the way?" He asks when we are turning on a long corridor full of clothing supplies.

"Alive." I reply, clearly not amused by the subject.

"You know you need to talk to him sometime, right?" He insists.

"I know, probably at the same time you'll talk to yours." I throw back at him. He stops walking.

He send me that angry puppy eyes stare. I roll my eyes. We both apologize. None of us truly forgives each other. Or ourselves.

But we forget about that when we reach the first cosmetic store. Hiccup stares at it for a while and I know exactly what he is thinking.

"Hiccup, let's go." I call him with a soft voice. When he does not move, my fingers break the barrier to his hand.

There is a tear lazily slipping down his cheeks. There are razors dancing over his eyes.

I give two steps to hug him around his torso. He takes a few moments to cross his arms around my neck, burying his head on my chest. I hug him tightly, feeling his tears falling on my skin.

Around us, people stare. Their disgusted expressions causing this intoxicating gurgling beneath my skin. I bend my head to smell Hiccup's hair. No one is around us. We are alone in the world.

Suck that it is literally true.


	3. Chapter 3

**Three**

We get out of the mall when the rain on his eyes ends. Somehow, I drive on autopilot, and we reach (what used to be heaven) the lake in the woods behind Hiccup's house.

It is frozen now that we are in the middle of winter, but it is still so calm and lonely that we still go there when the weight of staying home gets too heavy. He insists on bringing his backpack and his sketchbook. I bring only myself and already think is too much.

We don't talk. I kind of like it better this way. I watch as he creates a hundred universes on his sketchbook. Several figures start taking shape and life by his fingers. Silence is like glass. The first one who talks breaks it. Hiccup literally shatters it.

"I meant it, you know."

I roll my eyes, still not willing to talk about my dad. Happens that right here I have no escape. Not with him.

"I know you did." I reply.

"And?" He stops drawing to stare at me.

"And I'll see him when I am ready."

He only turns his head back to his drawing. I forgot how to breathe. He tries to ease the tension, saying the first things that comes to his head, but a forest spirit puts its hands over my ears.

When I was twelve, my mom literally dragged me out of my parents' house. She tried to explain why but I shut her mouth before she could.

It was impossible not to hear her screams when they argued about dad's girlfriends. Apparently, he was cheating on her for months before their first fight. He slept on the couch for weeks before finally renting an apartment downtown, then finally moving to his girlfriend house.

Emma and I could only stare in blank silence as they thrown us from one place to another, our fragile lives being ripped apart in small pieces that could never be mend together again. Mom ran with us to a Hotel in another city, where we stood for several weeks until we came back to the house. It was located on the same address that our house, looked exactly like our house, but it was not our house.

My mom payed me therapists, but they were clowns dressed like normal people, who kept staring at me as if I was a radioactive bomb about to explode.

I met Hiccup as we were waiting in therapy. He was doing it for a little longer than I was, and for completely different reasons. My parents ripped our family apart.

His parents didn't even know he existed. He could win a medal, join the Mensa, publish s best-selling novel or kill a president. _Just stay out of the way, Hiccup._ His dad often needed his liquid stock of mind numbness — mortals would call it vodka —, and his mom had _more serious issues to take care of_. More serious issues than her depressed/lonely/bullied/helpless son.

Call it fate that I later found out that I spent my whole life living on the house across the street from his. I used to believe that similar energies could bring people together. Maybe my family was a flaw in this system. And after not much talk, he ended up moving from the public school _north_ of the city — where people bullied him —, to the public school _north_ of the city — where people bullied him.

But at least here, he had me. Falling alone is despair. Falling along is adventure.

Mom said there was a light in the end of the tunnel. Happens that it was not a light, exactly. It was more like a spotlighted mattress at the end of a really high cliff. Sometimes I think we are still falling.

So we grabbed on each other, making bets to see who will reach the ground first, holding hands, waiting and screaming as we wait for the first one to let go.


	4. Chapter 4

**Four**

I mentally slap myself again when I remember that I was supposed to take Emma for her ballet practice. Hiccup is already standing when I begin the sentence "We have to go," and grabs my hand to help me out of the forest.

Good thing that Emma is almost dressed. Better 'almost' than 'done', then the fault does not fall completely on (us) me again. Emma waves goodbye to her nanny (what is her name again?) and I follow my paper on the script or offer her a ride home, she follows her paper by gently denying and walking the few blocks to her home.

Emma is buckled in the backseat, watching a movie on the DVD on her lap and drinking some fake-natural juice that mom's tells her to drink. Hiccup is silent beside me, mouthing the words of a sad music playing on the radio. He is not that bad singing, when he is not paying attention to what he is doing.

She is a bit hesitant to leave the car when we reach her (ministry of madness) ballet studio, and she mutters something like " _any of the girls talk to me…_ " and when I don't know what to reply, Hiccup's voice reaches her.

"Then be the best of all of them. You'll make them so jealous they'll want to be you. They will _have_ to talk to you and know how do you do it."

Emma's eyes shoot up with a new shine on them. "Do you really think I am this good?"

"I'm sure you are! Now go there and prove it."

"That's right, wicked." I back him up; even that he doesn't need me to. He has Emma on two of his fingers. I am almost asking how _he_ does that.

Suddenly Emma cannot get out fast enough.

We have to spend one hour of torture watching Emma's practice at her ballet class. Mom keeps filling her ears of how gracious she is. I keep realizing how much of a liar a mother can be. But compared to all the other equal girls and their equal mothers who thinks that their child is the most perfect on the world, I let Emma keep living her dream.

Hiccup distracts himself reading a book on his smartphone. Or at least I think he is reading a book when my own phone vibrates.

HICCUP: _Do u think we can escape for a while?_

ME: _Maybe, in five minutes when she starts focusing and forget about us ;)_

HICCUP: _Where do we go?_

ME: _We can't leave her here. Let's just stay outside for a while._

HICCUP: _Fine -_-_

I chuckle. In exact five minutes, Emma forgets we are here, and we tiptoe to the parking lot.

"Thanks." He grins, pretending a relieved face.

"Thank _you_." I reply. "We have…" I look at my watch, "fifteen minutes to get back there." Hiccup nods. I look at him. The whole day he has this forced grin on his face, or like if there was something keeping him from smiling completely. "How is it back home, with your parents?"

He sighs. "Dad is drunk again." I am not even surprised anymore. "Mom is taking care of him. Toothless," his cat, "is sick too, but she keep telling me that I should never have caught him with us. And now there is also this thing on my eye, which means that she will yell at me for giving even more work at home for her, and she also can't stop running around the house because tomorrow my aunt is coming to visit us from Norway."

Now for that I make a nasty face.

"And if my aunt is coming, it means that my cousin is coming, and I'll have to host him as a guest as he mocks at me and my dad will surely compare him against me and point to how much he wished that I was Stevenson 'Snotlout' instead of… you, know, me."

He says that all without taking a breath.

"You can pass the night at home if you want." I suggest. He looks at me, his face almost shining with his grin.

"Why didn't I think of that before?" He chuckles. "There won't be a problem? I mean, with your mom and everything?"

"Nah," I look at the street. "She doesn't care as long as I am not causing her any disturbance." He nods.

"I can't tell my mom, though." He says. "She'll yell."

"Go hidden." I suggest.

"She'll freak."

"She won't even notice." I say, and I notice it was a mistake.

 _She really will not notice if he is missing._

"I mean…" I am considering to strap myself on train tracks right now. "She will not care…" I am making it worse. Shut up Jack. "I mean…"

"It's okay." For my surprise, he laughs, and I see a small blush on his cheeks. "She really won't notice a thing." He jumps close to me and hugs me by my torso. "Thanks, Jack."

"You're welcome." I feel my own face burning, and I ruffle his hair before he steps away. I look at my watch again. "We should get back."

* * *

It is funny how silence is not the only thing that looks like a fragile glass ready to shatter.

I photograph all of my surroundings into my memory. The road. The cars. The people on the street. The slipping ice. Emma's laugh at Hiccup's poor tuneless voice to Mikky Ekko's _Smile_.

 _"The future is forever, so smiiiiile…_ "

The drunk driver's car headlights blurring my vision.

Emma screams in slow motion.


	5. Chapter 5

**Five**

They say I spent three days at the hospital. In the mess of flying shatters, fire and broken metal, my body fell asleep as my glass world exploded around me.

White random nurses run over me all the time, scrawling words of my condition on their clipboards. I have several cuts, bruises, one broken rib and had a concussion. However, my body wants to live. They all say I am lucky.

Emma's brain died on the table. I killed her body one hour earlier when I was not paying enough attention.

Good thing I'm lucky.


	6. Chapter 6

**Six**

The world is a blur. The lights flush over my eyes and wash away my vision. My rib is healing healthfully and perfectly. I throw up and get dizzy every time I raise my head due to the concussion.

Physically, I'll be fine in a few days.

My sister is at the morgue, I guess. They still have not buried her. Waiting for me to get better.

Emotionally, I'm dead.

The name marked on my bracelet seems wrong. It is like if the letters are spelled in the wrong order. I am in a hospital bed, being regularly fed because I am lucky I survived.

My mom cries on my mattress, her head buried on her hands close to the son that killed her favorite child. I don't blame her. Emma would also be my favorite child if I had a son like me.

I am disgusting.

I ask for Hiccup. They say he is on ICU. He is awake, also asking about me, but he cannot come when his body is still so weak. I don't want to see him. I have to see him. I am so ashamed of seeing him. I chopped off his leg by throwing a car over him.

A cop comes to see me on the next day. He asks me about what I can remember. My mom cries and says that I don't need to talk about it now. I say I need to before I lose my mind.

The officer says it is not my fault. He lies.

I was the one driving the car. I was the one who did not check if she was wearing her seat belt or not. I was the one to blame for… something, anything.

I feel like I need to prove myself the wrong one in this story.

The officer tells me the report someone who did not care gave him. Emma had her seat belt on. That it was not my fault. He is lying again. No matter how many tests they make, I know I am the one to blame.

Morphine knocks me out when I scream away all my rage.

There is so much morphine in my veins that it is hard to do anything without feeling it blocking in my

body, like a traffic jam. I wake up to feel more pain. The type of pain that no morphine can help. What could help right now would be Hiccup. Hiccup and his sarcasm. Hiccup and his arms. Hiccup and his skinny frame that always welcomes me when I hug him.

I ask the nurses to let me see him, I beg them to let me, they keep telling me to stay as still as possible. They keep reminding me I am lucky.

At some moment, I see my dad in the chair next to my bed. He is taller than I am, but not so skinny, not due to muscles, though. There is some beard on his face, the type that grows when you forget shaving.

He does not look at me in the eyes. I also don't try to call his stare on me. I don't want to look at the father of who I just killed.

He does not go away, and I am too tired to ask him to leave.

He only looks at my eyes when he stands to leave. He places a kiss on my forehead before leaving. It feels like needles penetrating my skin. I understand why he left when mom comes in. She is still crying. Her eyes are red, her lips still trembling. I also cannot look at her eyes.

Her hand touches my face, so gently and so lightly that I can hardly feel it. She is not mad at me, but she is. She tells me how much everything will be okay. How much she loves me.

We both end up crying, and it is the first time I am not knocked out by medicines to fall asleep.

The next time I wake up, there are no tubes in my arms. There are no tubes strapped on my arms. There is only the outside sound of my parents screams.

It rolls in my head all of their words.

"You didn't take care of her!" Dad.

"And where were you in all this mess?" Mom.

"Don't be ridiculous now, if you weren't so focused on your stupid work-!" Dad shouts. Mom interrupts dad.

"Here you start again, blaming what I do to sustain our kids…" Mom crying. Footsteps heard.

"If you might just leave and discuss this outside, please…" A doctor begs them.

They throw the blame to one another like a shuttlecock. It is an endless game. I kind of envy Emma for not having to hear any of this anymore. I am going to hell for this.

I am going to burn anyway.

I read my name on the bracelet a thousand times. I look at the grey sky in the window. I brush my hands on the blankets. I think about running from here when no one is watching to reach Hiccup's room. I make a hundred excuses to blame myself for Emma's…

I cry. Sobs escaping my mouth and rain pouring my eyes. Her last laugh imprinted on my memory.


	7. Chapter 7

**Seven**

They kick me out of the hospital in the sixth day. I need a wheel chair due to the recent concussion and the healing rib. It does not hurt as much as I thought. The physical pain hurts less than the emotional one.

I don't let mom get me out of the hospital without seeing Hiccup first.

He is laid on the bed, sleeping. There are not so many tubes strapped on him, it is more like I was a few hours ago. I take a firm grip on the wheel chair arms before pushing myself upwards. The world spins for a moment before I get balance back on my feet.

The missing part bellow the knee of his left leg is covered in white bandages. I stare at it, feeling the tears forming behind my eyes. I take his hand, stroke his hair and collapse on a chair near his bed.

When he wakes up, I am a mess of tears, sobs and rage. But it stops all at once when I see his open eyes.

"Hey." He tells me.

I jump out of my chair to hold his body against mine. I breathe in his smell, now buried beneath the plastic smell of the hospital. I place a hundred kisses on his forehead, squeezing his hand, not really understanding that he is alive. I do not stop sobbing for a minute.

"I-I'm so sorry…" That is only phrase that I can form. I repeat it a thousand times, and it feels heavier every time I say it again. I feel his free hand on the back of my neck, also stroking my hair.

I don't know how long we stay like this. A nurse has come and wondered if she should separate us, but disappeared once again behind the glass/wooden doors.

"Jack." I hear Hiccup muttering my name against my neck. "It's alright." It sounds exactly like a lie but it is not. "It wasn't your fault."

I am still shaking over him, and I feel his fingers pressed against my cheeks, rubbing me with his thumbs. I still feel like I am losing him. He pushes himself upwards and settles himself better so he can hug me

tighter. I slip over his bed, and lay with him until I can control the sobs.

I visit Hiccup every time his parents are not around. His dad always comes here drunk. Even his cousin Snotlout comes here sometimes because his aunt asks him to. He does not care, and it makes me want to beat him.

Emma's funeral will be tomorrow. Today is Friday, and it is still snowing outside. Hiccup helps me by not asking me how I fell, or telling me it will be okay. The best thing he does is hug me when no one is around.

I brought his sketchbook yesterday. He makes hundreds of drawings, but now they are much more than just dragons. I see blood on his features. I feel all the sadness of his sketches. It hurts to look at them for too long.

It hurts to see his soul through the paper. Art shows itself in the most tragic way.

His mother appears today, holding a big paper bag on her hands. Hiccup's dad is apparently sweating, but not smelling like alcohol like he used to. He is definitely trying to be sober enough for Hiccup.

"I'll come back later…" I stand, ready to leave when Hiccup's mom stops me.

"No, stay. You've been here with him for so long, don't bother because of us." She gives me a gentile smile as the man near her groans something unintelligible. I let gravity drag me back to my seat. The woman walks towards me, then hugs me for a moment. "I am truly sorry for your sister."

I should feel something with the mentioning of Emma. Something else than sadness. Even rage would be better, enough, to fill the hole in my feelings right now.

I fake a smile at her.

She turns to her husband, sending him a deadly glare that clearly tells him to say something. He winks at me. They have no idea I want no kindness from this mam. They turn to Hiccup again, setting the package next to him.

"What is it?" He asks, his voice is not as weak as it was only yesterday.

"Open it and find out." Her mom is much gentler than I thought. Maybe is the fact that I am here. Everyone is always more when someone is watching.

With trembling fingers, Hiccup rips the impossible net of papers to unwrap his present. It takes him a few seconds before releasing a shining metal prosthesis.

He cries. Then both his parents hug him. I also record this moment in my memory. Far but close to Emma's screams.


	8. Chapter 8

**Eight**

The funeral is blurry. The snow thick and lifeless, just as much as the people dressed in black to don't disappear in the white winter environment. I hate the smell of the flowers people bring. It is like if they could release small physical lines that twist inside my nose and wrap around my brain. They smell like death.

Hiccup is not here to give me comfort. My dad is, but I avoid the closeness as much as I can. So is (his girlfriend) Lauren, but she won't leave dad alone. She has to show mom who does the laundry now. I also hate her. My mom holds my hand for a while, until I am strong enough to reach Emma's open casket. She is pale as snow itself. Everyone is. There is no mark of the accident on her face.

It is like if she was sleeping. Any minute now, she will open her eyes, sit up and laugh at all these flowers around her. She loves flowers. She will open that huge smile that would make me smile as well, and then throw her arms up so she can hug me by my neck, jump in my lap and ask me to spin her in the air until we both fall on the ground, laughing.

I only realize I'm crying when (my mother's) Dr. Mary Howard's arms slip around mine, pulling me away from her frozen stone body.

I am forced to watch as all of those people who barely knew her (rape her) stare at her sleep. My little sister. She is breathing in their sorrows and expelling their grief.

I am forced to watch as they release her casket in wholes on the ground, earth being thrown over her as I cry. All I can do is stand still, hoping for someone to say that this is a joke, that Emma somehow survived and is alive, well, and dancing ballet with those girls who disliked her. Until I see that, some of them are here, forcing me to understand that she is not playing with them.

I almost scream for them to stop digging. Someone just left a part of me inside the earth.


	9. Chapter 9

**Nine**

My routine mostly consists on not being at home. I go to the lake. I go to the hospital, waiting for Hiccup, already out of UCI, almost released to come home. He asks about Emma's funeral the day after we buried her.

He holds me for hours until my tears dry.

When a crowd comes together at home to pay their respects, I almost ask them to never leave. I consider paying for strangers to stay put, talking and yelling as much as they can, sing to the walls and cry at the doors, only to suppress the silence. Anything.

My days in the next month can resume in nightmares, waking up sweating, getting dressed to go to school where the rumors about Emma's death spread like a virus. Everyone knows everything. Everyone stares at me wherever I go. They see everything of me. They think I am sad. Or depressed. They have no idea of how lost-; no, broken-; no, numb-; no, empty/sick/heavy/tired/dead-but-not-allowed-to-die I am. When I take one-step forward, they take two steps back. I am contagious.

Hiccup's absence is what kills me the most. He spends a few more days in the hospital, and I count every number on the calendar with a nightmare. I try to write about them. Hiccup draws them at the hospital, and I lie when I say his drawings are amazing because they scare the shit out of me. When they finally release the hospital Hiccup to the real Hiccup, I hold his hand when he forces his new leg to move him through the entrance stairs. He refuses the wheelchair. He is too stubborn for it.

"If I have to learn how to walk again, I'm better start at some point, right?" He convinces everyone with a single sentence. It makes me feel jealous, admired and scared of him.

I go seated next to him in the car. We remain in silence the whole trip, trying to don't wake up the ghosts as his mom drives. I hold his hand on the way upstairs to his bedroom, but he pushes me away when I reach to support on his waist.

"I have to do it myself." He says.

It takes him five minutes. I say it is like alpinism. He says it is like riding a monocycle. And when he smiles at the top of the stairs, proud of himself, I clap my hands in a fake cheer.

When he finally reaches his bedroom, I help to hang all his new hospital drawings on the walls, pining them on every open space we find. I see a pattern of mood on his drawings. The oldest ones, when he didn't know me, were extremely sad. Even when they had nothing indicating it. The ones in the middle-sweet time we became friends are twice more happy. Or at least hopeful. The one I am holding shows a dead tree, blood escaping its routes.

When his wall is once again a mess of random images, I can see angry life forms trying to snap out of the drawings, and I imagine them grabbing Hiccup by his neck and slowly dragging him to their dark dead world.

"So, what do you want to do?" I ask him, shaking my head to forget about the ghost staring at me. He looks at me with a worried face.

"Can we get out of here? Maybe go to the lake?" I send him a worried expression, gesturing at his leg. "Please, I don't want to be locked up in a room anymore." His green eyes begs me to agree with him.

It takes seven minutes, not five, for him to make his way downstairs. His mom does not even asks where we are going. She only press her lips on a forced smile as we disappear through the kitchen's door to the backyard.

Hiccup looks at his steps all the way as we go. He waves his arms around as he walks, still unbalanced. He can cross the hospital corridors easily by now, but it is his first time outside. In addition, the fact that we are walking over dead leaves, fallen branches, and snow does not as well.

At some point, his arms swing forwards as he trips on his new foot. He yelps, tightening his eyes for the certain impact. He only opens them when he feels my hands around his waist.

He grins for a minute, staring straight through my eyes. He pass his right hand around my neck, letting me help him. I grab his hand over my shoulder as I led him forward. Slowly we make our way into the forest. The ground is full of obstacles, and we trip every ten steps. But his arms hold stronger around my neck. Sometimes I hold him tighter and pull him upwards, like if he was flying.

Suddenly, I give up. I pick him by his sides and start spinning and spinning as if we were wooden puppets, his bad leg freely flying in circles around ourselves until I slip on the snow. I hold him so he lands over my body, his free hand pressed against my chest. It takes him a few seconds to realise what just happened.

We both end up laughing, blushes spreading through our cheeks.

"You know, I think here is enough, even if we don't make it to the lake." He breathlessly talks in between his laugh.

I look away from him for a second, only to see the beginning of the lake a few meters away from us. "Well, I don't mind staying here." I reply.

Our smiles fades with a few minutes. It was the first smile I have not faked in weeks since the accident. And I do feel the wish to cry, until I feel Hiccup's nose pressed against my neck. He still smiles when I pull him closer, and his other hand goes around my shoulders.

We cuddle in the ground for minutes, hours in silence, only hearing as the forest breathes around us. If we pay enough attention, we can actually hear the forest heart beating as we stand still, holding one another in our arms.


	10. Chapter 10

**Ten**

Emma's screams echo in my throat.

The last image floating on my mind is Emma, giggling as the stars break into my vision, vines raising across the bed and keeping me awake.

The door opens with a loud thump, and I only know I am crying when I can feel Emma's fingers on my cheeks. The temperature drops when she is close. Her finger feels like frozen stones, and wherever they touch, they leave a trace of blue ice crystals on my skin.

I don't move. I only stare at Emma's eyes. They were once brown and shining, but now they are a dead shade of grey. She breathes on me. At least she smells like Emma. I can't move. I fight against the chains that keep me stuck on my bed but they hold me tighter every time I breathe. I'm trapped.

Emma says only one sentence before everything disappears.

"Follow me, Jack."


	11. Chapter 11

**Eleven**

Emma's scent is still stuck beneath my nose when I wake up.

The vines that trapped me on my bed died and evaporated as I slept. I am sure I'll find some dehydrated pieces of it on my mattress. I shake my head before I stand. It is the first Monday that Hiccup is going to school since the crash. It feels like an eternity as I eat my bowl of cereal and kiss (my mom) Dr. Mary Howard goodbye before I can cross the street to his door.

His mother hugs me briefly when I step in. Her arms feel like a pit of needles into my skin. She is catching the last things she'll need to go to work as I step into Hiccup's house. He is still finishing his breakfast.

"Your mom said that the insurance will return the car this week, sweetie." Hiccup's mom says as she stuffs more things inside her bag, before swallowing an entire chocolate cake. I nod.

"Yeah, they are coming at Wednesday." I say.

"That is good." She says, a reassuring smile directed to me. I give her a confident expression.

I am terrified.

Hiccup stays with me in the backseat on the way to school. One week has passed since he got out of the hospital, and he already is much better with his new leg. He can barely run, but he feels no pain at the scars on his knee.

"It is like if I could still feel it." He says. "The doctors called it phantom pain. When the body is still not used to the shock of missing a limb. I don't know what that is supposed to mean." He grins at me, and I nod back to him.

Call it phantom pain or ghost pain or retarded reaction if his brain is too slow to catch up with the rest of his body. Hiccup will never get used to the chock of his best friend chopping off one of his limbs.

People stare at us when we get to the school. They call me a monster with their raged eyes. They are white soldiers as I am a red enemy they need to kill, especially after I have injured one of theirs and killed one of my own.

Hiccup locks his eyes at me all the way as we walk. He makes no expression when he starts sweating and his skin gets snow-pale. He does not stop walking when I know he is hurting.

We reach his locker before he can faint, and I stay one foot close to him.

"What?" His voice is slow, but he forces himself strong enough to look at me. I shake my head, and take his books from his hands, saving them into his locker as he stares at me, his wide eyes getting tired before I slam his locker shut and grab him beneath his arms.

He yelps in pain at his first step with his left leg.

Everyone stops walking, stops breathing and start judging as I literally carry him by his shoulders. I hear people's words

Stupid/killer/stupid/weird/stupid/idiot/stupid/killer/stupid/

Kill yourself/stupid/dangerous/stupid/killer/killer/killer

directed to me as they follow us out of the corridors and into the nurse's office. The nurse sends us an inquisitive look, and understands everything when she sees who we are.

"Sit him down here, I'll take care of him." She is also trying to push me away from him. Everyone is. "You can go to your class now-"

"I am not leaving him." I say when I see Hiccup's eyes wide in fear of being alone. Anyone could come in here and send him disgusted looks. He is still an outcast, even with everything that is going on.

"You should get back to class, mister Overland, he needs to-"

"I. Am. Not. Leaving. Him." I state. She sighs, forced to accept the living time bomb called Jack Overland and head back to her desk before taking medical supplies out of a bag and waving them at Hiccup's face.

She says he is weak, and checks out his leg and notice that it is bad plugged on his skin, holding it too tight and making him bleed were the skin is being pressed like a tourniquet.

She casts her spells on him, and tell me he needs to rest for a few minutes. She agrees on letting me stay, but that is because Emma's ghost is staring at us from the dark. I sit down next to Hiccup, stroking his hair as he sleeps over his arm.

* * *

The trip from school to our street is short enough to walk, and Hiccup's leg is shining silver and gold as he walks, used enough to the foreign feeling strapped on his knee.

Emma is on everywhere today. She is climbing all the trees as we walk. She is eating vanilla ice cream (her favorite) and licking her fingers because she always drops something. She is making a mess somewhere. A mess I am not able to clean. _Not this time, wicked._

"Jack?" I hear Hiccup's voice like if he was underwater.

I drift from Emma to dizzy, gravity, floor and darkness.

* * *

I wake up with Hiccup's hands around me. The second thing I notice is that I am on the couch in the living room. The house is silent, and the unusual comfort in Hiccup's proximity can only means that my mom is not home.

"Hey." My voice is croaky, like if I ate fire.

Hiccup looks at me, and give me a tired smile. "You're awake!"

"No, still sleeping, just checking your observation skills as I sleep-talk, you failed." He rolls his eyes at me, but still smiling. "What happened?"

He sighs. "You passed out in the middle of the street. A stranger who was walking by helped me getting you here, so now you owe me ten dollars because he wanted to call an ambulance." I chuckle.

"You are the best friend ever." I say, tiredly looking at his green eyes.

"Yeah, whatever." He presses a wet towel against my forehead. "Anyways, I'm taking care of you for something like two hours. By the way, do you mind telling me what the last thing you remember is?"

I close my eyes for a moment. "I remember walking. Then a blur when I thought about…" Someone just ripped off my vocal cords.

"It's okay, you don't need to talk." Hiccup rushes to rub a tear from my cheeks.

I do not cry myself to sleep again. Hiccup bends down and curls me against his tiny frame, my head over his chest as we both just stand still, like if somehow time would just stop for us and nothing could happen in this calm little world of ourselves.

"Your dad called." He tells me. My eyes jump open. "He said he wants you to spend the weekend with him."

"No way." I reply so fast that I barely feel the words. "I'm not going there now."

"Jack…" Hiccup seats up, and his stare clearly says that I must not cut him from talking. "I know you lost a sister… but he also lost a daughter."

The knot in my throat locks me from speaking.

"He is trying to get close to you again. Even I think you should go. Don't waste this chance."

I cannot deny this to the person I am talking to. I think about the differences between my dad and Hiccup's and I think of what would I like better: a dad who sees me every day and does not see a son in me, or a dad who hardly ever sees me because he was dumb enough to be kicked out by mom?

Do I want to die from the inside out or the outside in?

Dad is the last person I want to see. So I go for the second person I less want to see. "I'll talk to Dr. Lawrence at Saturday. I'll see what he thinks," When I see Hiccup's expression, they show all but disappointment. "I'll try."

Hiccup finally smiles to me. "That's more like it."

Then he bends back down to cuddle with me for another hour. I stroke his hair; and try not to think about Emma when I hear all the words of the hilarious looks of people in his classes. He goes for when Emilia Jacobsen dropped her pen near him only to get close enough to try to look at his prosthetic leg. I stroke all his day as he talks. Even his teachers seemed to ease down a bit on their homework. No one dared to pick on him today.

I smile at that, and pull him closer to me.

"You know, I was thinking about something these days." He says.

"About what?" I ask, my eyes shut.

"Like, maybe some of these people are not totally wrong when they call us weird." I open my eyes and raise my head to look at him.

"Whadooyamean?" I mumble. He chuckles and rolls his eyes, bringing his head up a little to look at our tangled bodies.

"You see this? It is not exactly the _normal_ boy-to-boy friendly interaction."

"So what? We were never normal," I point. "But if you don't want to keep doing this it's alright, I mean," I start pulling myself off him before his hand grabs me by my neck.

"No!" He almost shouts, and it startles me. "I-I mean, we can always… you know, like this…" His hands could win the Olympics with all the gestures they just did. I laugh.

"So you do want to cuddle with me?" I lift an eyebrow.

"No. I mean, yeah. I mean…" I shut his stuttering by burying my head into his neck.

"Now you have no choice, I want to cuddle with you." My lips brushes his skin, and I can almost feel his shivers.

"What if I don't want to?" I can notice the mocking tone in his voice.

"I said no choice." I hug him by his neck, letting him hug me by beneath my shoulders. He chuckles.

I am so lost in Hiccup's scent and the feeling of his warm and the texture of his skin that I have no other thoughts in my head. Until I look at the clock on the walls, it is 6 o'clock. Emma is waiting for me at her ballet class.

"Shit, we got to go." I say, pulling myself upwards way too fast.

"Jack?" Hiccup's voice chases me but I can't hear it.

"Come on, we are late." I am rushing to get my blue converse. "Emma is waiting."

When I say it, is like if my brain splits in two. The idea of Emma waiting for me sounds wrong, like if I knew something that I shouldn't. But Emma is waiting. She is right now getting ready to leave, and she'll wait for minutes and she will cry when she sees that I am not there and…

Hiccup is crying in front of me. But happens that I don't see Hiccup. I see Emma. Emma's ghost is staring at me from inside the walls.

"We got to go Hic," The world is spinning in circles again. "We got to…" The words lose themselves inside my body and are kicked somewhere I cannot reach them. Tears force their way out of my eyes.

Hiccup's arms straps themselves around my neck as I feel his body pressed against mine. My knees fail below me pulls my body straight down. I collapse on the floor. Sobs escaping. Emma is still waiting. Emma is dead. Emma is waiting. Emma died almost a month ago.

I don't even know where I am exactly. All I know for sure is that Hiccup still holds me on the floor, his head against my shoulders as I cry.

"Stay with me, Jack." He repeats this phrase a hundred times. I wonder if that means that he is dead too, waiting in another world where everything is upside down and I have to get back to the living.

Someone just messed up gravity.


	12. Chapter 12

**Twelve**

Time forces Hiccup to leave to his house, leaving me alone with my sister's shadow. I stay away from the walls, and as I am alone, I avoid my best to stay away from the walls. I walk on my socks, my steps completely silent as I walk around the house, trying not to wake up her ghost.

Her room's door is closed. My hands are burning, itching to grab the handle and open the door, but invisible chains wrap themselves around my wrists, turning me around and forcing me away from her room.

I slip back into my room, shivering on the bed as I wait. I don't know what I am waiting for. Waiting for everything/anything/nothing. Waiting for my mom to tuck me in. Waiting for my dad to show up and ask me if I want to talk. Waiting for Hiccup to rescue me.

I wonder if someone can just die of waiting. I stay still, hoping for this luck. Nothing happens.

(Mom) Dr. Mary Howard enters the house after a few hours of horrifying silence. I hear her steps. She stops by the door and I throw myself under the blankets. I want her to come in. I want her to get out. I don't know what I want the most.

When I hear her footsteps again, she is leaving for Emma's bedroom. I can hear her sobs, even when she tries to muffle them with Emma's pillow.

"She is trying to sense my smell again." I hear her voice.

My eyes roll to where Emma stands near the door.

"She is probably drinking too." She states before sitting down. "Shame, a waste of a good vodka going to the trash can by the morning."

I only blink at the twisted ghost version of my little sister. "Leave me alone." I say.

"Oh, Jack, don't be mean." Her voice is rough and sweet and happy and sad and anger.

"Leave me alone." I cover my head with a pillow.

"But I miss you, Jack." I shut my eyes tight. I can only feel her cold breath against my face. "Follow me, Jack."

* * *

I make my way slowly down the stairs. My head spins and weaves and I feel just like I felt when I was ten and mom/dad took Emma and me for a ride on grandpa's boat at the beach in Florida. I threw up after getting seasick and they had to bring me back to the land. That only happened once, though, and I can still remember the feeling when I close my eyes and think about it for long enough.

(Mom) Dr. Mary Howard has purple shadows beneath her eyes when I get to the kitchen. On her hand, the large orange pill still evaporates in the glass of water. She does not look at me.

"Morning, mom." I say, and her eyes lift to meet mine before dropping back on the table. I have to remind myself that I did this too.

I find the empty bottle of vodka at the trash can, just as Emma said. I look around my shoulders to find several no ones staring.

No ghost watches me today.

I have two classes with Hiccup today, one at the first period (Trig) and one after lunch (History, failed again). Words poured into our brains as we (nap) watch a movie about the World War 2 and stuff that does not matter. We hear long and boring speeches of how much we do not study hard enough. I fall asleep at every class.

People still observe us as we walk down the halls. Hiccup eases the tension and tells me about how his dad fell down the stairs at his house last time he was drunk (a week ago). I force my cheeks up and weave my head at him. When we go to different classes, I take him to his door, and he waits until everyone is in as he keeps bursting words after words to keep my mind off things. I resist the eager to hug him right now.

He clearly does not want to stay here. Neither do I.

"Hey, ah…" I can see that his teacher is not even looking at the door, his nose buried into his computer. "Do you want to run? Like, right now?"

Hiccup's eyes open wide like if I just pointed a gun at him.

"Jack…?" He stops himself from replying and he stops himself from not replying.

"Just this once." I grab his hands, looking as his teacher wakes up from his hypnosis. Hiccup bites his lip before jumping outside.

* * *

No one is walking by the halls. No living soul whisper at us as we sprint to the exit, rush to the street and disappear in the snow.

I had no idea of how much fun Hiccup could actually be. He is like this helium balloon; cut his string and he'll fly forever until he pass heaven and see what lies beyond.

The school drifts away from us, we do not stop running until he asks me to slow down from his sprint, holding his knee with his leg when it starts aching. None of our parents is home right now. We could hide in the woods, or disappear on the lake. None of it is enough.

We crash the mall. It's ten thirty.

Mall + morning – people = empty.

When we were twelve, Hiccup and I went to the mall with his mother holding both of our hands. She would takes us to all the shops we needed, had, or (not) wanted to see. She trapped us with meaty chains in our wrists. So when she had to excuse herself to go to the toilet, we disappeared into play stores.

She searched for us for one hour, but she never suspected of the noise or the air horns that Hiccup found and that we started to use around the corridors, scaring all the kids that we found. We fought epic battles with light swords, became monsters with the masks displayed on the balconies, we found heaven in things we would never own.

She never found out about what we did, because even though she heard the noise we did, we were _little angels_ ; little angels never do such things. We escaped that time.

But today is different. Hiccup pulls me into all the empty shops that we could never fully visit when we had the grown-ups company. Centuries ago, I would laugh, yell, shout, and play with everything on my way.

I can only force smiles to him.

He takes me up and down the halls, sliding on the edges of the escalator to show me he don't want to be normal today, especially when no one is watching. He forces me to catch him when he hits the ground after he loses balance, and he shoves me away, laughing at the weird position his fake leg is. One of the guards rush to help him, and his scared expression of Hiccup's terrifying leg makes me explode in unexpected laughs.

The guard shouts at us to _be more careful!_ before turning on his heels, shaking his head as Hiccup and I keep laughing until our lungs bleed.

Hiccup drags me to the street again, and we see that a small blizzard is forming. I start hoping for a snow day tomorrow, and for consequence, all class should be cancelled, and as I wonder all the magnificence of staying home, I feel the frozen softness of Hiccup's snowball smashing on my face.

"Hey-" Another impact makes me swallow snow the moment I open my mouth.

"Too slow." He says, before dodging of my counter attack.

Hell breaks loose in the parking lot. Both of us laughing and yelping and freezing and fighting in (heaven) snow. We slip behind the few cars as we throw all the snow we can gather in our hands. Hiccup was getting good at this. But he forgets I am the supreme master of this game.

Years of throwing snowballs at Emma made of me a prodigy in snowball wars. So when I step out of the car, I roll over my shoulders to dodge his attack before throwing mine straight on his face. He yelps and falls on his knee with the sudden hit, and laughs with Emma's voice out of his lips.

I stand still, even when he throws another snowball at my chest. I can almost feel the edges of my smile crumbling. Then the snow melts when Hiccup throws his arms my neck.

"Hey, it's okay." I hear his voice, again submerged. But I force myself out to the surface. I lace my hands on his back, sensing his touch and his scent for a second before lightly pushing him away a few steps.

"I know." I place a hand on the crock of his neck so we change forced smiles to one another.


	13. Chapter 13

Think about a fluffy chapter xD Severe Hijack feels now

Disclaimer: I own nothing. And owe nothing but a big thanks to the new reviews.

 **Thirteen**

We make our way back home with small steps. It is soon to be coming back from school, and the distance between home/school/mall is basically the same between one another. We keep quiet, but the silence is not unwelcome. Our hands keep brushing one against the other as we walk, and nothing seems particularly out of place when I force my brain to think about the feeling of hiccup's touch. This small peaceful gasp is broken when we reach our street.

We don't want to go. He does not want to spend his day waiting for the company of a drunk father and a timeless mother. I don't want to stare at the silent walls under the watch of a vengeful ghost.

"So, ah…" He says, his feet hesitating to drag him to his house. His eyes stare at my house before I grab his wrists.

"Ah, whatever," I say before turning in my feet and not feeling Hiccup rejecting the _forced_ invitation.

We do nothing the whole day, nothing but turn the TV on, put the radio at the last volume and fill an Emmaless house with noise because we can't stand the quietude. We end up crying on the couch when neither of us is expecting, and Hiccup's fingers wipe away all my tears as we hug one another to fulfil the empty hole in our chests.

We fall asleep at the couch. I don't know for how long we slept or when we fell like this, but all I know is that Emma's ghost is not staring at us through the walls. Not today, anyway.

Hiccup's fingers are making sleepy patterns on my chest, his head lay on my right shoulder as he sleeps, his legs tangled against mine. His prosthetic is loose on the floor. Shivers run up and down my entire body in fractions of seconds as I take everything in. I cuddled with Hiccup a few times before, but the feeling never truly goes away. My fingers lock on his hair, my thumbs rubbing his cheeks, feeling the soft skin. I count all of his freckles twice, then again.

My other hand goes for hugging his side, and I finally feel a sign of life on his body. In his sleep, he moans in pain.

I check out for how he is dressed. The heating system fills the air on his invisible blanket, making the use of jackets and hoodies almost useless. Hiccup only wears his T-shirt.

My body acts before my mind, and my fingers grab the end of his shirt, slowly pulling it up. Inch by inch, his skin is revealed, and I am not surprised at the old scars that escape his hips and waist beneath his boxers. I am almost reaching his ribs when his eyes snap open.

He jumps off my chest, pulling his T-shirt back down to cover his skin. His eyes open wide, but my expression is broken. Almost empty, if not touched by the fingers of disappointment.

"W-what were you… J-jack…" He stutters, but I stay still.

I breathe in, close my eyes, and breathe out.

"You moaned in pain as you slept." I say, my voice is low and croaky, but not lacking of confidence. Hiccup's eyes roll around the room, looking at anything but me. "I know you don't want anyone to see your cuts. You don't want anyone to see it when you are fragile. But Hiccup, I _need_ to know."

He closes his eyes, and his cheeks become as red as the blood beneath his skin.

"Please don't hate me for that." A tear escape the corner of his eye.

I hold both sides of his face with my hands. "I can _never_ hate you."

He nods, and silently gasps before pulling his shirt up above his shoulders and around his head, removing it completely. Several red lines mark his skin around his ribs, some of them reopened and have small red dots at the edge of the cuts.

"I am sorry." He says as more tears crumble the dam and he sobs.

I wrap my arms around his neck, pulling close to me. His hands go around my shoulders, holding my back just as tightly as I hold him.

"Don't be sorry." I whisper on his ears.

"I am." He sobs. "I l-lied to you. I just-" sniff "-I just can't stop."

I close my eyes hard enough so my eyelashes knot against each other. My fingers lock on his hair. I kiss his cheeks once, twice, as many as I could not until I feel he stopped sobbing.

"I know you can stop." I tell him. He pulls away.

"No, I can't." His eyes stare everything except mine. "I tried everything. Even stealing my dad's drinking supplies." My eyes open wide in shock at this. "I am sorry, Jack."

"No, Hiccup, I am sorry." I say, holding his face again. "I am sorry I never helped you as I should." I can finally see his green eyes, reddened by his cry. "Tell, me, right now. What is you wish to cut? One to ten."

He furrows his eyebrows, but then he thinks about it. "Right now, four."

 _That can work._ "Okay, and after you leave and I am no longer with you?"

The gears inside his brain spins and locks until he understand where I am going. "Then I'll want to cut again. Ten."

I flash a smile. "Stay with me tonight." He stares at me, incredulous, scared, surprised and flattered. He smiles. "Come on, what do we have to lose? You said it yourself: _we are not the most normal friends_ anyway."

A grin opens and fades for a second.

"Okay."

(My mom) Dr. Mary Howard enters the house when it is already dark. Her eyes are dry and with dark circles beneath them. She cried on her way from here-to-there and on her way from there-to-here. But never at the hospital. There is no crying for Dr. Mary Howard when patients are waiting. She can fix their broken hearts and make magic inside their chests, but she cannot let them see her cry.

"Jack?" Her voice calls me.

"Coming." I reply, rising from the floor of my bedroom where I was sitting with Hiccup as we surfed on the internet searching for the best dragon-themed films for us to watch tonight.

"Mom." She is at the kitchen, getting her things off her bag and spreading them over the table, like if they were her torture equipment.

"Hey sweetie-" She rubs a tear with her sleeves. "-your father called today. He wants to see you this weekend." By weekend, she means freedom. She will be able to cry and drink and land dead on the floor without me to see it.

"I know, Hiccup told me yesterday." I tell her. She nods, putting some things in the sink. "Is everything alright?" I ask her.

"Yes, it's okay." Her tears finally dry. "I lost a patient today. His heart stopped after an intoxication by amantadine."

"The flu meds?" She nods. "I am sorry."

"It's alright. It was a hard case to solve. He was taking amantadine for days, then his kidneys were destroyed in a bus crash, and the amantadine on his blood attached to the proteins. His body could not filter it and his organs failed one by one. At least he had the time to say goodbye to his family in the by-pass."

She sounds like a textbook. Textbooks don't have emotions. Textbooks don't sound like they lost a kid in the last four weeks. Sounding like a textbook is great right now.

"So there was nothing you could do since he wouldn't be able to filter it out of his body."

"Unfortunately." She makes that expression of failed hero that she uses every time she loses a patient. "Well, that happens."

I am hoping for the textbook mom now. I am hoping for just mom. I am hoping for Dr. Mary Overland to turn her back and do her things. I am hoping for Mom to cross this invisible barrier between us to hug me and cry.

I don't know which is worse.

"Hiccup is spending the night here." I tell her, changing the subject like if I was dodging a bullet.

"That's nice. He can stay as long as he wants, but are you going to see your father Saturday?"

"I am going to see Dr. Lawrence tomorrow; I'll see what he thinks." I tell her.

"That's great, honey. You already know what I think, that man did a lot for you, and it's good for you to see him." I force myself to pull my cheeks upwards. "Do you want me to bring a mattress?"

"I already did."

We both nod. We both turn around. We both end talking. We both follow the invisible guidelines.

Hiccup is laying on my bed when I get there. The mattress ignored on the floor. "You know, usually the guest takes the mattress." I tell him.

"I give you the honor." He mocks.

"Well, I don't want it, thank you very much." I say as I shut the door.

"Now that is rude of you, Jack." He replies.

"Well, I'm not going to sleep on that god-damned mattress." I am already climbing next to him on the bed.

"Neither. Am. I." He crosses his arms, his nose inches of mine.

We both know that none of us is going to use that mattress.

I push him on his back, laying him down in the bed. He laughs as I climb over his body and start running my finger through his body, tickling him and getting the loudest and weirdest laughs he can make.

I start madly laughing too when he snorts, and he does not even need my tickles to laugh by himself.

"Idiot." He chuckles. I don't even reply.

We both take a three inches distance between our bodies on the bed as we watch the film. My room is mostly blue and white, but the lights of the window creates an orange glow on the walls. We hear movement downstairs, along with mom's pager going off. If she does not pick it up, it'll explode.

She screams that she _has to go_ before slamming the front door, jumping into her car and evaporating.

Sometime during the film, I slip my left arm beneath his pillow; two more minutes until he _accidentally_ lays his head on me. Then one more minute until I turn my body so I'm laid at my left shoulder. Moves and gestures until we are both tangled in ourselves.

"That was easy." I say when we are definitely cuddling. He knows what I am talking about.

"Why do we still take so long to actually do it if we both know that we _are_ going to do it anyway?" He asks, and I grin as I pull him closer to me. He rest his hand on my chest, the movie completely forgotten.

"Hiccup?" I whisper. His fingers brush my chest. "How bad do you want to cut right now?"

He remains quiet for a moment. "Zero."

I smile. "And if I wasn't here with you?"

He buries his head further in my body. "I would be cutting right now." He mutters. I hold him by his waist, a silly smile on my face until he pulls his head off my chest. "But Jack, you can't be there for me all the time."

"Why not?" I ask him. He keeps silent for a moment.

"Because this here… This is not… You know?" He gestures to our current position.

I lift an eyebrow. "No, I don't know, you won't stop stuttering."

He rolls his eyes. "Everyone say it's wrong. We're both friends, are we're both… boys."

I feel his body tensed against mine. Hell, we're both tense. It does not stop me of placing my hand gingerly on his waist. "Does it feel wrong?" I say, making him face me, the streetlights that invade the room making his features visible. His eyes are not staring at mine. He is staring at my lips.

There is one last aching heartbeat before I rub my free hand on his cheeks and release the feelings I have been bottling up for years.

His lips are soft and warm, slightly wet. His kiss is uncertain, awkward, but it's the most full of passion in the world. It grows deeper after a while, and the emotion increases at every second. The urge turns into a need, and our mouths dance in one another, tasting him.

I turn him on his back, his arms hugging me by my neck as I hold his body against mine, my knees between his legs as we kiss eager and deeper, the butterflies transform into firestorms inside my chest, spreading to my limbs to the last edges of my being. The heat of his body making me strong enough to carry the world on my shoulders.

The elastic of our lungs snap back out as we run out of air. The sound of the kiss spreads and kicks around the walls.

"I guess… I guess it doesn't feel that wrong." He says, breathless. We both chuckle before I kiss the skin on his neck, earning small moans from the unexplored parts of his body.

We both know where we are going. My kisses go further from his neck to his collarbone, and then my fingers grab his shirt, pulling it off for the second time today.

His hands hide the scars on his body, even when I already saw them. I do not pull his hands away. I simply smile after kissing his lips again.

"You're perfect." I breathe out in his lips. I don't see his cuts, or simply his skin or his body. I don't see how skinny he is or how small. I bend down to him again, capturing his lips with mine, feeling his arms lacing my neck, rubbing my skin and pulling me closer.

We moan and paint, kiss and gasp for air. We remove every last piece of our clothes, touching every little inch of our bodies, covering every part of him with kisses. So when I hold him by his waist, ready to join our two bodies into one, he whispers in my ear.

"I trust you."

I only see him. Hiccup and his freckles. Hiccup and his feelings and secrets. Hiccup and his shy, introverted, strange and wonderful self. Him and how much I want him just like he is.


	14. Chapter 14

Hello lads

Yes, they had sex. Bloody amazing. Now to the story, shall we?

* * *

 **Fourteen**

Emma does not visit me today. She does not dare to show up when Hiccup is here. His scent is in my pillows, in my blankets and in my clothes. Everything feels strange. Like if the walls switched places as I slept. Everything is out of order. However, not wrong.

I realize a few seconds later that it is I what is out of order. My naked body pressed against Hiccup beneath the blankets.

He lays on my chest, his arms wrapped around my body. I remember every little thing. All his touches and all of his kisses. I smile before kissing his forehead. His eyes lazily open, without understanding where he is, or how did he manage to slip inside my room and wake up naked in my bed.

Then he smiles. "Good morning." He is still dizzy from his sleep.

I peck him on his lips once before leaning up against the bed frame. He hugs me around my torso. "Do you want breakfast?" He nods, his eyes half-open as he stretches his arms and back.

I chuckle before pulling the blankets off me, exposing my naked body. Hiccup moans against the cold. I peek his skinny legs and tights once before he covers himself again, but not to do not be seen.

I catch my clothes from the floor, and I am sure I saw Hiccup's blush as he turns his head to the other side. "Perv." I joke at him, before he throws a pillow at my face. I pull my clothes on before opening the door.

(Mom) Dr. Mary Howard is sleeping in the living room. Beneath her head, Emma's pillow makes her dream with Emma's scent and Emma's presence and Emma's memories and Emma's everybloodything. A half-empty bottle of vodka one foot away from her hands.

I shake my head before turning away from her, going straight to the kitchen and holding myself so I don't smash everything thing that I grab on the walls. Emma's favorite cereal box reaches my hand somehow. And then it reaches the sink as I send everything down the disposal. It all breaks and smashes and vanishes as I close my hands in fists.

When I turn back, Emma is facing me with her dead grey eyes. The room freezes.

"Come with me, Jack."

* * *

I open the door with my right foot as I hold the tray with my both hands. I ignore Emma's stare as I pass through the hall. Hiccup is sited on the bed, the blankets still covering his legs, his clothes scattered around the bed. He draws.

I close the door smoothly with the back of my foot when I come in. He shuts his sketchbook and puts it on the ground before looking at me.

"Hey." He whispers. "Good morning."

I grin at him, pecking his lips to push Emma's appearance away. "How are you feeling?"

"Great." He says before grabbing a muffin from the tray. "Just a bit achy. Is your mom home already?" I nod.

"She's sleeping in the couch." Then I sit down next to him. "She drank all night, apparently."

Hiccup stops eating. He stays quiet for a moment. "Try not to think about it. You are going to see your therapist today, right?"

I roll my eyes. "Yeah, I am. But you can help me with that." I smirk.

"How?" He is already grabbing his second muffin. I kiss his cheeks before he can stuff his mouth again. He smiles. "Let me wake up first, will yah?" I laugh.

* * *

We both change giggles and chuckles all day. We have only one class together (physics lab), and we lace our fingers beneath the desk. The memories of our last night is practically dancing over our eyelids (NOT VIRGINS, NOT VINRGINS!) and when I whisper this thought at him, he starts blushing and laughing uncontrollably. We hide in the toilets after each class to make out when no one is watching. He shoots his arms around my neck as we kiss every inch of skin we can uncover. I had no idea Hiccup had this crazy YOLO side on his personality; it is somewhat addictive.

The loudspeaker shuts at the school corridors, sending me to the principal's office. I can almost hear the school walls vibrating at the certain words people are using right now, saying that it should be my expelling or that I put myself into trouble again. I imagine their disappointment when they find me safe and insane here tomorrow. Hiccup's lips snap out of my neck, heavily blushing. We're both breathless.

"So, can you do me the honor of taking me to my class, Mr. Frost?" Hiccup Jokes when we can finally breathe. The corridors are still empty, and we grab our hands behind the backpacks as we march until his late class (physics). "Good luck there." He tells me.

"Thanks." I reply, a shut smile to keep him from holding the subject any longer. He turns on his heels to get into (the lions cove) class.

The principal tells me that my mother called and I have to leave school to meet Dr. Lawrence. He keeps telling me how much good it will make especially with all I've been through and whatever. I stop hearing before he can mention Emma's name. The day is going wonderfully fine so far, so please don't ruin it now.

* * *

Dr. Lawrence's Office smells like spoiled cabbage and mint. He looks like an owl by the way he is completely focused on me, like if there was no walls or windows, no clipboards for him to make a hundred useless notes of my "condition".

When I was younger, after Mom and Dad made an earthquake that broke our family into two different continents, mom (requested) suggested me to see this (ass clown) specialist in (crazy teenagers) troubled adolescents that needed (to grow up) help.

On the first two visits, I gave him a map of my mind, and he used it to bring his demolition team to destroy everything and then he rebuilt everything back up, but on his own terms.

When I saw it, I had foreign and dangerous thoughts in my head, like answers for things I _really didn't want to know._ Once I got mad at my uncontrollable thoughts and shout at him every true thought I had about him and his stupid words. Even I was shocked by how much of a psychopath I seemed.

He did not even blink. He slightly moved on his chair like if had the smallest interest on what I was saying. He told to hold on that feeling. I locked my mouth and stitched it.

I am brief at everything I say to him. I nod and say it's okay and thank you when he tells me how sorry he is about Emma. I swallow the wish to throw him out of the window.

"Did you went to her funeral? Or were you still at the hospital?" He asks me.

"No, I was there. I couldn't miss it," I shrug.

"That is good." He tells me. He crosses his leg over his couch. "I heard you had your friend Hiccup with you." I nod. "Is he alright?"

"Lost the left leg in the crash. But he is already recovering." I tell him. He does not make any questions about the accident itself.

He follows his list of things to ask that will not "trigger" me.

Dr. Lawrence: Does he still talks to you?

Me: We talk to each other every day.

Dr. Lawrence: About what?

My thoughts: _About how much I don't want to be here and how much being here makes me sad and how much I don't want to talk to you._

My voice: Anything except the crash for now. Well talk about it when we get over the shock. My dad wants to see me though. And _then_ I'll have to talk about her.

Dr. Lawrence: Do you want to talk to him?

Me: Not one bit.

Dr. Lawrence: Why?

Another rush of weird angry thoughts cross through my brain like a hurricane of razors, slicing my mind in search for not-so-angry answers. _It will make me even sadder because he will cry to the person who killed his little precious daughter. He will try to be in one day the father he never was in his whole life and I will get angry with him, we will throw curses one another and we'll storm out of the house and he'll probably get drunk and will crash his car and lose his left foot…_

Dr. Lawrence: Jack?

I haven't said anything for at least five minutes.

Dr. Lawrence adjust himself on his chair. "I imagine how divided you are right now."

"What do you mean?" I ask, not looking at him.

"Right now, you are crossed between the grief and loss of your sister. The first rational response would be to get some solace from the closest to you. Especially your parents. However, you are avoiding them. It makes me wonder what makes you so introverted when it comes to your parents."

He talks like a textbook. I can almost see my mom in his features for a second.

"So, you think it is a good idea for me to go? To my dad?"

"It depends on how long you think you can stay with him, without triggering any negative feelings." He does not even blink to answer my questions.

"Hiccup says he is trying to reach me somehow." I tell him. "He says that now that I became his last child, he wants to fix things up."

"Do you agree with him?" He asks. I nod once, twice, but I am not sure of what I am saying.

"I think I can make it okay if I don't stay for too much." I reply.

"Why don't you go there at Friday night, go back at Saturday morning?" He suggests. "Less time to stay there, you both can talk for plenty of time, and then get out before anything can happen."

I nod. "I guess I can try that." My time is gladly running out. "By the way, the car is being delivered today."

Dr. Lawrence squeezes his lips. "Are you feeling excited about driving again?"

I shake my head. "I guess I'll never be. But if I don't do it today, I guess I'll never be able to actually do it."

Dr. Lawrence approves with his head. "It's fair enough. However, don't do anything you don't feel comfortable with. And don't suppress your instant thoughts. They can make a difference when you least expect it."

Dr. Lawrence bends over his puffed chair. "Now, when it comes to your nightmares, or your flashbacks, I imagine they happen when either you are alone or in a stimulating environment, right?" I nod. "I suggest that you find yourself a totem."

"What is a totem?" I ask.

"A totem is a special object that you can keep to yourself, something that reminds you of the present. It keeps you from swinging from reality to flashbacks. It usually helps when you keep it in your sleep."

"Like what?"

"It could be anything. A journal, a lucky coin, anything, but it has to be really, really special, like if only you could know all the parts of your special totem."

A hundred objects rush through my brain.

Hiccup wraps itself at it.

I wave my head when I'm leaving the room. I'm mentally deleting all of his lies.


	15. Chapter 15

**Fifteen**

Mom was pretty clear with the insurance company. A new car, same style, but where Emma's ghost won't be staring at me every time I look at the rearview.

I stare at the car for what must be one hour. I take in every detail, but I don't touch it. If I touch it, it may burst in flames, explode, or just shatter and cut my hands with the tiny glass pieces.

I turn around when I cannot stand to keep looking at it. The house is empty. Right now, my mom is dealing with a never-seen-before trauma in some stupid accident at the hospital. They might as well could give her a medal for it. Hiccup is sleeping at his desk in the last class (Hopefully dreaming about me/hopefully not moaning my name as he sleeps). The walls are still breathing around me, threatening me, but I keep my distance from them before they decide to collapse on my head.

I eat my lunch in the living room. I let the TV screams against the house walls. I put towels over all the mirrors I can encounter. I write something. I surf into depressing Tumblr posts. I pretend I do not exist.

When I'm tired of searching, I decide to follow Dr. Lawrence's advice. I rush upstairs, enter my room and slam the door behind me. I sprint to an old wooden chest mom gave me when I was five. I simply can't find myself throwing out this thing. I dig out every single thing out of it, searching for whatever it is that will make me stop looking and stare at it.

Eventually, my fingers wrap themselves around a cold metallic thing. A golden bishop chess piece.

Of all the things, it had to be this, right? Because Hiccup gave it to me. Two years ago, when he made his point showing me he was the smartest of our duo. Happens that we didn't play chess against ourselves to find out.

He submitted his name for the school chess tournament. It was him against a row of nerds that never dared to stare at us, too afraid to get infected.

He lost at the last match. This girl (straight A's in physics, math, chemistry and whatever else) check mated him at the last dripping seconds. Still, he refused to tell me I was smarter than him, stubborn little shit he is. And to remind me, he gave me the piece. At first, I laughed. But I kept it with me, since it was Hiccup's and I already had a crush on him since then. Or since earlier. I can't tell an specific moment, I guess it just grown with time.

I get back to the living room to find Emma's eyes staring at me.

My feet dance beneath me until I fall on the floor, the back of my head almost cracking with the impact. Dizzy and with stars floating around the room, Emma is still smiling.

"Hey silly." She tells me. The room is cold.

"Go away." I tell her. I don't scream.

"Oh, that is so rude, Jack. I missed you." I force my hands to pull the floor beneath me until I am finally standing. "Watch out, you don't want to fall again."

The TV volume mutes. "Aren't you supposed to be in heaven or something like that?"

Emma rolls her glass dead eyes. "Is that how you greet your little sister?"

"My dead little sister." I spit.

"Now that is your fault." She does not even blink as she stabs my heart with words. "I came all the way here just to see you, catch up with things."

"Now isn't that wonderful." I mock, but I am too shocked to enter her little game. "You don't _need_ to catch up with anything. You are dead. You are not even real; you're just my brain trying to trick me. You're a hallucination."

"Do you really believe that?" She asks.

(No) "That's the truth." I reply.

"Now you're hurting my feelings." She steps closer, and I try to step back. My feet are frozen on the ground. She press her mouth by my ear. "Come and chase me, Jack."

I want to hold her before the world spins in a mess of snowflakes, the temperature drops to FREEZE and everything fades to black.

* * *

Three door knocks wake me up. I am still on the floor, not covered in snow anymore. Emma is gone, the lights are on and the music is smashing all the windows. The knocks repeat, more urgently.

"Coming!" I shout before standing back on my feet. I turn off the TV before opening the door to an amused/concerned/freaked out Hiccup. "Hey…"

"Jack! What happened to you?" He spats before grabbing my neck and placing his fingers at the back of my head, making electric particles fry my skull from the outside. I yell. "How did you do it?"

I remove his fingers from my head, noticing they have some red dots on them. Blood. "I… fell?"

Hiccup's expression makes my head spins. "Let's get in; I'll take care of that." He (drags) leads me back inside, slamming the door and making me sit on the kitchen chair.

He could be a bird by the way he moves his arms back and fourth through the kitchen, bathroom, hell and here, med kits waving around on his hands.

"How did you do this?" He says before his fingers brush the bleeding skin beneath my hair. Something aches, but I hold my mouth from making any sound.

"I told you, I fell." I say.

"Geez, Jack, how?" His fingers grow small branches that curl inside my skull. I finally yelp. "Sorry." He mutters, trembling.

I could tell him of everything. Of how Emma came to see me and scare me to death, of Dr. Lawrence opinion, of how I don't want to, cannot, would hate see my dad any time soon.

I sigh. "I don't want to talk about it."

Which is a mistake, because Hiccup's hands stand still where they are. "Why not?" He asks, and I wonder how my mom's voice slipped into his throat. He stares straight behind my eyes. His green ones are glassy.

"Just… not now." I try for his sentimentalism. It works for now.

"Just… don't lie to me." He says before leaning into me, kissing my forehead for a second.

Hiccup's hands dance a hundred rituals over my head, cleaning and placing gaze after gaze, but not attaching anything. It stings when he floods my skin with (fire) alcohol, but pain is welcome. The thoughts of cutting cross my mind for a moment, and I push it away a second too late, the idea hooks into my skull and jumps into my mind.


	16. Chapter 16

**Sixteen**

Spending the night with Hiccup at his room is like a bless. His warm keeps me safe from Emma's haunting ghost. No dead grey eyes staring at me from the dark tonight.

I avoid my car to go to school next morning; telling Hiccup exactly what I don't feel. He tells me exactly what he does not believe. We both go walking.

School does not fail to torture us with rolls after rolls of whispers and mutters. Hiccup is indifferent. I act indifferent to the voices

 _Stupid/freak/stupid/weird/stupid/useless/stupid/idiot/stupid/_

 _Ugly/stupid/loser/stupid/nerd/stupid/stupid/stupid/_

that are always pulled into me, I know my brain will find a way to remind me of them all tonight. But for now I ignore them to hide in the library sessions that will never be visited, such as history and politics, to make out with him.

His tongue slips inside my mouth, his fingers grabbed to my hair and drawing patterns on my neck. He is so small, but still have such a power over me that even gravity itself bounds to. It's a delicately wonderful thing to feel. I'm slowly falling for him.

The bell rings. He pushes me off; I try to conceal the loud noise of the kiss break; we both inwardly laugh. I walk with him all the way until the corridor where we go separate ways. I grab the golden bishop from my pocket, and then rub it against my fingers. Even that feels like Hiccup. Then I pretend I'm listening to class the rest of the day.

As the teachers recite their useless poems back and forth, I drift away with ghost stories and haunting situations. Maybe I should write a book about it. Maybe I would get in for the New York Times bestselling authors. Maybe they make a movie about it.

Whatever.

I sleep at the final class. My teacher gives me that annoyed look of "my job is being wasted" and I give that annoyed look of "I am not here by choice".

Walking down the streets back home holding Hiccup's hands feels like a little piece of Heaven on Earth. It keeps me from think about thinking.

I take in all of his features. His freckles. All of them are like little stars marking his skin. His dark thick eyebrows that keep moving all the possible directions as he speaks. His noisy voice, but it is the best one in the world. His green eyes. Like trees and leaves. A little brow near the irises. They turn gold when they reflect the sun.

They narrow when they look at mine.

"Did you even hear what I said?" He asks, throwing me out of my random thoughts. I shake my head, grinning. "I wish I knew what is going on your mind sometimes."

Emma. Emma's death. Emma's ghost. Emma's visits.

Hiccup and how much I love/want/need you.

"I was thinking about you." I say.

Call it romance or simplicity, it works. Hiccup's eyes open wide, and then his expression softens when he leans in to kiss me.

"We're outside…" I remind between a gasp and a peck into his lips.

"Shush. If you don't think about it, it may go away." He replies before leaning back into me.

* * *

"You are sooo going to drive it."

"No, I'm not."

"Oh yes, you are."

"No, I'm not," I sing.

"Ah, come on, Jack, it's been here for two days already, I'm getting tired of walking to school." He begs.

My hands freeze around the car keys.

"Hic." My voice stutters, locking itself in my throat. A hundred images dance over my eyes. The car lights, Emma flying around, Hiccup's leg crushing against the metal, me and my worthlessness. He seems to recognize it. He breathes in, then out.

"Look." He starts. "I know what you are feeling… Or maybe not. I'm scared too." I close my eyes, and he takes a step forward to me, holding my face with both his hands. "But if you don't do it now… you may never do it again. You'll run from this your whole life, you will never stop." I open my eyes, feeling the warm behind them. And the warm at Hiccup's hands. "You know it wasn't your fault,-" Lie detected "-no one blames you, I don't blame you. Neither would Emma."

He says her name to shock me. It can go terribly wrong or terribly bad. But he doesn't really get it. It's not the fear of crashing again. It's the fear of seeing Emma staring at me at the backseat. The flashbacks. That's what scares me to death.

I sigh, bending my head down.

"I'll try." It's the second time I say that this week. It's Friday morning. If I drive it now to school, I'll feel good enough to drive it tomorrow to my dad's house, and I'll look good enough to people forget that I'm in pain. At least according to Hiccup's line of thoughts.

He guides me to the driver's seat. I hold the wheel with both my hands, like if at any moment it could blow up in a rain of needles. I breathe in, breathe out, count a hundred numbers, then thousands then millions, until I feel good enough to twist the keys. Hiccup remains silent the whole time.

The car makes a weird sound when it starts. When it does not go off, though, I finally (fake) crack a unbelieved smile.

"Yeah, that's what I'm talking about!" Hiccup yells at his seat.

"I'm not even driving yet." I point, making him chuckle. I shake my head before stepping on the accelerator. The car still does not explode. Not when I drive it out of the front yard to the street. Or down the way to school.

People stop and look at the new car, and the mutters restart when I get out of the driver's seat. I ignore them, and so does Hiccup.

But today is different.

We have only three classes together, and we stay side-byside as much as we can. We skip lunching in the cafeteria to eat in the car, mostly because none of us is willing to play the circus freak to everyone around us so they can eat their meal as their cameras record all of our movements.

The day goes on like any other. Except for the final period. I hide in the bathroom until the corridors clear again. Happens that when I get out, it is not as empty as I thought it would be.

I can hear the muffled sounds of a heated argue, followed by Hiccup's noisy voice.

"…It's not his fault, leave him alone." I hear him. And then some girls from the feminine soccer team.

"He was the one driving it, he is the one who made you lose your foot. He is the one who made his sister…"

"Stop it!" Hiccup's voice get's higher and stronger. I wish he would let her finish. I wish someone, anyone could tell me the truth. "I'm not going to talk about this. It happened but it was an accident. I know it because I was there…"

"That's exactly why you should step away from him, before he can get you killed too."

The girls finally say the truth. It tastes bitter and heavy. It gets my tongue stuck.

So when they turn around to see that I am listening, I am already running to the car. Hiccup says something, trying to slow me down but it's too late. I'm already storming out though the glass doors.

"Jack!" Hiccup shouts.

"Leave him." There is a rustling sound, the girl probably tried to grab his arm.

I jump into the car. Emma's ghost finally present with Hiccup's absence.

"Missed me?" She says.

"Oh my God… Get out!" I yell when the door is shut.

She giggles and sings all the words I don't want to hear when I run away from school, a blizzard of ice behind the car as I speed up.

"You killed me, you killed me, you killed me, you killed me, you killed me, you killed me, you killed me, _kill me_..."

"Shut up!" I scream, turning on the radio at the last volume, the windows shimmering and vibrating with the sound waves that explode and hit around and back again inside the car.

It doesn't work. Emma's voice is in the radio. She is in the announcement woman's voice. She is in all the stations. She is Mikkey Ekkos voice again.

 _"The worse is yet to_ _come."_

Perfect. I scream aloud the lyrics, rain pouring down my eyes.

I get home in autopilot, but it feels like hours since I left school. I could have crossed the country and entered an entirely different state.

 _you killed me, you killed me, you killed me_

I shake my head before slamming the door behind me. I look around for Emma's ghost. Nowhere, which is good. But her voice is everywhere.

"Shut up!" I scream again.

My mind spins and spins all the words I heard today. He can get you killed too, he made you lose your foot, he made his sister…

I go for the bottle of vodka my mom has left untouched on the balcony. The bottle makes little screams when I grab it, like if it could shatter at any moment.

It smells funny, like the smell of when you have to make a blood exam on the hospital. When it goes down my throat, it rips and burns as if I was drinking pure fire.

My vision goes blurry and wavy, and as more as I shut my face for the feeling, my throat keeps burning. I drink more, tricking my brain to think it's water.

I spit it out.

When just vodka doesn't work, I know a shake does. Mom always leave soda on the fridge. I grab the coke, and when I shut the door, Emma is waiting behind it, sitting on the table as she looks at me with a mocking face.

"Oh, Jack, you shouldn't do it." She says.

"You are making me do it." I tell her. "Get out."

"You really don't get it, do you?" She asks, giggling.

I turn away from her, grabbing the first glass I can find to fill it with coke, then complete it with the firing-water. It tastes smoother.

I empty the glass with several hesitant sips, and then fill it again. Another roll. I run to the TV, put the music o volume again, and walk around by the house. I dig another bottle, this one of a bad champagne that (mom) Dr. Mary Howard leaves here for some specific meals she cooks every once in a while.

It tastes like piss, but it doesn't burn like pure vodka. I drink it on bigger sips.

None of it works. Emma slips with the alcohol and swims into my flooded brain.

"Come with me Jack, please!"

In the fog of alcohol and madness, I can distinguish the golden bishop falling from my pocket, hitting the floor with a sharp noise before I land face-first next to it.


	17. Chapter 17

**Seventeen**

Hiccup's hands are creating earthquakes on my shoulders when I wake up. My eyes roll from one side to the other. I recognize him by his smell instead of by his image. His cheeks are hidden behind his tears.

"Jack, wake up!" I hear him, but I'm not even here.

I'm drifting between sea after sea of white lights and blurry lines. Emma holds my hand wherever I go.

Something boils up from my stomach and splashes on the floor, acid. The smell penetrates my nose and twists my other senses. I throw up again by only the smell.

Somehow, some unnatural forces drags me to the bathroom. I am taken off my clothes, washed and cleaned. My shaky hands ignore all the commands they hear from inside and outside my head.

Hiccup yells a hundred incomprehensible things to me; I can't make sense of any. At some point, hands that feel a lot like my mother's touch my half naked body (half due to that incredibly heavy towel around my waist).

I am thrown into a car, thrown on a hospital bed, thrown as a wooden puppet, thrown like a basketball, throw like this useless sack of meat and blood and alcohol.

Emma holds my hand as they attach tubes to my arms, then a nurse decorates the room with plastic bags full of silver water and serums. I pass out.

* * *

"Great job, little brother." Emma's voice wakes me up. The room is so full of light that my eyes shut again. "Poisoning yourself with five times more alcohol in your blood than the driving/drinking limits." She leans close to the bed. "You really want to come with me, don't you?"

"Where's Hiccup?" I ask her.

"He's outside. You've been here for hours now. He's sleeping." She says before getting up. She looks so taller than what I remember Emma ever being. "Drinking was stupid. Mom is thinking that it is her fault now… Which it kind of is. She will never forgive herself."

"Weren't you suppose to say something cool since you _want_ to be here and drive me insane?" I say.

"I'm just saying the truth. That's what siblings do."

"Yes, but not to hurt each other."

She looks at me with her dead grey eyes again. They have several cracks instead of pinky lines around the globe.

"Call that a payback for killing me." She spats. "You want the truth? You killed me. You almost killed Hiccup. You make a mess wherever you go. You are the reason for mom and dad to split up, you would never step away from them, making dad grow impatient and going after somewhere else where you wouldn't be. You are pathetic. You can't even get drunk right. You are useless. You are worthless. You are a waste. And that is why I miss you. Don't take too long, okay?"

Tears lost their way in my throat before the door slams open and a nurse comes in. Emma disappears behind the door, joining the nurse. A few moments pass, then Hiccup runs into the room, hugging me by my shoulders.

"What the hell were you thinking?" He spats, leaning away from me. "You scared me to death!" The tears I lost are now rolling down his cheeks.

I forgot how to breathe. I only look at his glassy green eyes.

"I'm sorry." I say, before the knots in my throat undo and I'm free to break the dams and just cry.

I am hugged but not kissed by Hiccup. Then hugged and kissed by (my mother) Dr. Mary Howard. When everything goes quiet again, (mom) Dr. Mary Howard excuses herself to (get poisoned by coffee) go to the cafeteria.

Hiccup holds my hands, squeezes my fingers and places a soft peck on my lips after she's gone.

"I'm sorry I couldn't stop them." He says. My eyebrows twist in confusion. "The girls, from the soccer team. I am sorry I didn't just walk away from there and stood with you."

I shake my head. My eyes detach from my skull and the room dances a few more times when I'm still again. "It wasn't your fault. If anything I'm sorry for making this mess." I squeeze his hand back. "I just wanted to… argh, Emma's right, I make a mess wherever I go."

Hiccup's eyes narrow, and I realize my mistake.

"What do you mean? How can Emma…?"

I'm saved from instant explanations to _why I can see ghosts_ when the door opens again. Relief drowns in fear when my dad reaches me through the room. He stares from me to Hiccup, and them bounds over the bed to hug me. It feels wrong.

"What happened? Where… where is your mother?"

"It's alright dad…" I start. He spats.

"No, it's not alright, my son almost kills himself and she is not even doing anything…"

The door opens again. Mom storms into the room.

"You!" Dad yells.

I roll my eyes as they drop their bombs and attacks out of the room and away in the corridor. I look at Hiccup, and he is still hearing the argue.

 _This is mom and dad way to solve things out_ , I imagine myself saying to him. What I really do is squeeze his hand again, and let another tear slides down my face.

"Sorry about that too." I tell him.

"Stop apologizing." He says.

Hiccup leans into the bed, still sited on his chair, laying his head on my shoulder. I kiss his forehead, ruffle his hair, count all of his freckles again.

"By the way, you were holding this when you passed out." His hands fly to his pocket, reaching for the golden bishop. He handles it to me, gently, and I stare at it like if it could save my life. "I didn't know you still had that."

My eyes drift to his.

"Tell me something to stay alive for." I whisper at him. He raises his head just enough to look at my eyes. His eyes are still glassy.

"Live for me." He says.

Storms create in my features as I mix crying, smiling, and sadness and love all at once. He leans in to kiss me, and I rub his freckled/blushed cheeks with my hands, deepening the kiss until I lost sense of where we are, or how long we kiss. When I shatter, Hiccup joins all of my pieces, one by one, or all at once.


	18. Chapter 18

Short little chapter here

* * *

 **Eighteen**

The hospital kicks me out soon as the alcohol leaves my system, leaving me with a killer headache, dizziness and several painkillers.

Hiccup isn't allowed to leave his house today. Apparently, his dad also decided to swallow all of his alcohol supplies at once, and he is helping his mom with his hangover.

Mom stays quiet the whole trip to (dad's) Professor Overland's house. I wander off as the scenery around us rush backwards, like if we were standing still as it moves. All we have to do is wait. Wait for failed tests results, wait for miracles, wait until I know which college to apply, wait until my hangover pass, wait until I see Hiccup again, wait, wait, wait.

(Dad) Professor Overland is waiting for me at the living room.

"Any trouble coming here?" he asks mom.

She shakes her head. "Just a bit traffic."

"You need help to get his car?" He asks, his lips moving for all of his body.

She shakes her head again. "I'll bring him back myself tomorrow morning."

"It's too soon." He tenses, and I think _it's too much already_.

"Dr. Lawrence told me to don't stay for too long." I say, but they do not even hear it. I am not in the room. I don't even exist.

"It's the only free time I have to get him. I have a surgery to take care of tomorrow."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot your patients come first." His mocking Voice is back. I already cover my ears to the upcoming discussion.

It doesn't happen. Mom only sends him The Stare before turning to me and placing a kiss on my cheeks. "Be ready tomorrow at eleven."

I nod. She walks away, not slamming the door, not storming out, not creating a scene and not yelling. It goes better than what I expected.

I look back a dad. He is staring straight through me.

"So, what do you want to do?" He says.

(GET OUT, RUN AWAY, SCREAM, STAY AS FAR AS POSSIBLE FROM YOU) "We could eat something." I suggest. He nods.

As he orders the pizza, I rush into the bathroom. I stare at my own reflection in the mirror. I look like a perfectly recently pooped crap.

The marks around my eyes makes me look like a zombie. My white hair is more messed than usual, spread at every possible direction over my head. My skin is even paler, almost as white as my hair.

My eyes are sick-blue. Everything in me screams sick. Sick skin. Sick hair. Sick life and sick mentality.

Dead or alive, I would not make much of a difference right now. Nor ever. Except for Hiccup, maybe. He told me exactly how he felt when we first became friends. It was something just like that. I wonder how he managed…

I stare down at my thighs. I stare behind my dad's mirror. I stare at the extra razors he never uses. I stare at my shaky hands grabbing things that break the plastic body of the shaver.

I undress myself of my clothes, throwing them at the floor before staring at my naked ghost through the mirror. My body also looks sick.

I turn on the shower. The water splashes against my body, turning me into a sea-creature that swims in fear and dance with monsters. The razor on my hand shines and screams against my fingers. My blood screams to be released. My skin screams to be ripped apart. Everything on my body screams for me to do it. Hiccup will curse me forever for this.

I cut.

One, two, three lines against my hipbones, where no one will notice them this soon. The pain stings and flashes through me like a lightning, but it doesn't last much. The blood comes out after a few seconds. It doesn't even look like a cut, properly said. More like scratches on my skin.

There is no relief. There is distraction. There are ideas and concepts of doing something dangerous and forbidden. There is the illusion of control over any bloody thing about myself.

There is the feeling of being alive. I flash out a genuine and painful smile.

What am I doing to myself?


	19. Chapter 19

**Nineteen**

My dad stares at me from the other side of the table. The pizza is disintegrated between his teeth as he chews it again and again and again. We are in absolute silence since we started eating. I put more food in as much as I can, keeping my mouth full so I don't have to say anything. Maybe, if I am able to keep eating for the next nineteen hours until I can get out, everything goes on just fine.

Fine is a lie. Fine is what you say when every little piece of you is crumbling down and someone who doesn't care that much about you asks how you're feeling. You say okay for people who do care. And you say I'll be okay when said person knows something about what you are truly feeling.

But I can't avoid his eyes. They are always staring. Every movement I do. They are just as blue as mine.

Eventually, the silence is too heavy even for me.

"Where is (your girlfriend) Lauren?" I ask.

"Business trip." He says simply. Great, now I can't get a diversion for him to look away from me. I'll be his target for the rest of the weekend. God, I miss Hiccup already.

"Did she went to Emma's funeral?" I ask. Mentioning Emma's name doesn't scare me. Her presence scares me.

He nods. "She went with me. But decided to keep some distance."

He asks me some questions, like how is school, how's the new car, how's your mental breakdown, and I pretend I'm listening, when in reality the words pass straight next me like if I was dodging them by nodding.

He finally drops the bomb.

"I want you to move back with me." He says. I don't even lift my eyes. I just stay quiet. "It's just… now that Emma died, I think it would the best for you if you keep some distance from that environment."

"No." I say after five seconds of silence.

"Please, Jack. You can't deny that it is affecting you. You got terribly drunk, your teachers say that you are depressed, even Hiccup is worried about you."

 _Hiccup is the only one who is actually worried about me, if we count that he was there with me during the crash, then he gets a thousand points ahead of you and mom._

"Maybe next weekend?" He asks.

"For what?"

"To move your things here." He explain.

"I'm not coming back." I state.

He sighs, and his eyes turn glassy.

"Am I really that bad of a father to you?" He says.

"Come on, dad, I can't leave there now. Hiccup is the only friend I have, and he lives at the house next door, I couldn't ask for a better help than his."

"He could come and visit." He tries.

"It is not the same thing." I point. "We go to each other's house every day. And I'm also helping him, especially with what happened with his leg. If anything, moving here will make me even sadder about things, I hate moving."

"If Hiccup is your main concern, you will make new friends here…"

"I don't want new friends." I cut his sentence before he can finish it.

He sighs, apparently defeated.

"What do I need to do to get my son back?"

It would be heartbreaking, if I wasn't so tired, so dizzy and so angry at his emotional blackmail.

"Don't push me to do things." I tell him. "I am sad about Emma, and maybe depressed, she was my sister, but I can make it. I am not alone, I'm going out, I'm with Hiccup, I'm…"

"What is it about this kid that makes you so attached to him?" He spats.

"He is my best friend!" I can feel my voice getting higher.

"Oh, come on, best friends don't decide to ruin their chances of recovery only to live at the next door to each other." It is easier to deal with him when he is angry. Angriness makes him stupid.

"He was the one with me when Emma died. He was the one who helped me when I got drunk, he was there for me many more times than you ever where!" When did I start yelling? "If anything, I prefer to move with him instead of with you."

"Bullshit, you just don't want to get better. You like feeling miserable, don't you?"

There are tears forcing their way out of my eyes, but I hold them back.

"Maybe I wouldn't if you showed up more times. Emma and I hardly ever see you. She died and probably didn't even remember how you looked like. Oh yeah, what did you do last time you vanished like that again, dad? Any new girlfriend around? Are you ready for your second divorce? Don't forget that Lauren is tough, she'll take all of your money, unlike mom."

There is a vein pulsing out of his forehead. Any moment now, he'll grab me by my neck and sink me into the ground. I'll end up at the other extremity of the planet.

He pours himself a glass of milk. Breathing in and out. There are still somethings I took after him. _Unfortunately._

"I wish I knew what goes on inside your head. I really do." _Don't get too close from it_ , I think. _You may not get out of it alive._ "If you don't want to move in, fine. Can you at least promise me that you'll come by more often? I don't want to lose another son, you know."

"Honestly?" I tell him.

"If you can." He goes all witty again.

"No. Coming here makes me sad and freaks me out, I don't want to be here for any more minute and I just want to run out of here." He looks down at my statement.

"Can you try, at least?" He asks.

I sigh, looking at the windows, the walls, and the dirt on the floor, anything except him. "Fine."

He fakes a smile. "Thank you, Jackson. That is a start." I nod.

"Can I use your computer? I got homework to do." I tell him. I have to get out of here.

"Sure." He sits back on the table. "The password is…"

"Emma." I say. "I remember."

* * *

I realized that I never even looked for news about Emma. The accident was not on the news. I type her name at the empty search box. Emma Overland. When that does not show any results, I type Emma Howard Overland.

There are news of a month ago, no longer with the "new" seal on it.

The texts are pretty much the same.

 _The risks of reckless driving. Drunk driver is arrested. Girl dies on the surgery, two boys wounded._

 _Drunk driver, responsible for the death of Emma Howard Overland, is arrested._

I twist the golden bishop between my fingers, hoping it ties me on Earth as I keep reading.

 _Sixteen-year-old boy loses his leg at car crash._

 _Girl dies in an accident with her older brother._

 _Girl is killed by her brother in a car accident._

 _Emma Howard Overland is killed by her brother. Emma died. Emma is dead._

It is your entire fault, Jack.

I shut the screen.

My fingers create circular waves at my temples, rubbing upwards, downwards, upwards again. My dad watches some stupid documentary about space and other garbage that doesn't matter at Discovery Channel.

I press the skin at my thighs, silently yelping when it itches. Pain is good, I remember. Pain is good. Pain is life. Pain reminds me I am still alive. Pain is life.

(I want to die.)


	20. Chapter 20

**Twenty**

As I pretend I'm asleep, dad types a thousand more words to his new upcoming book about gravity and the laws of physics. As I pretend I'm asleep, mom is driving home, crying, hoping to reach the bottles I did not use two days ago.

As I pretend I'm asleep, Hiccup draws. Hiccup cries. Hiccup hugs his pillow and pretend it is me. Just like I am doing now, I hope. My clothes that mom send to me this morning smell like his hug. Something like wood and grass. I close my eyes tighter and imagine his face and his freckles. He would kill me if he saw the cuts in my hipbones.

Great, now even thinking about Hiccup makes me sad.

I finally give up pretending and throw the blankets off my body, standing up and ignoring the stars dancing at the room when I get dizzy. Emma is nowhere to be seen, which is good.

I walk around the house. I go to the kitchen, almost alive as the dishwasher vibrates at the corner. I drink some water, not for being thirsty, but because all the small incomprehensible words at my blood tests results say that I am dehydrated.

Dad was pretty specific: Staying here means staying healthy. Staying healthy means staying awake and strong enough to do not faint at climbing the first set of stairs. Staying healthy means not drinking, which means not being locked at the hospital again, which means not making any bigger mess more than what I already done.

I climb the stairs after I checked all the rooms. There is (the guest room) my room, where dad never touches anything for the case (I go crazy) I decide to move here. I don't really know what I'm looking for. Somehow Dr. Lawrence's voice enters my head. _What am I looking for? Why?_

Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything. Nothing. Everything. Anything.

Because I'm lost.

Because I need to get my mind off things for any freaking minute before it explodes. Because I need to be nostalgic. Because I want to pretend that nothing happened. Because I want to know where I am. Because I need to see Emma in a way that does not freaks me out. Because I miss Emma.

That is how I slip into dad's room. His bed is neatly made at the center, but his desk is a complete mess near the wall.

I sit on his chair. I stare at his papers. Notes for his college lessons. A trophy and a medal for his researches. Another medal for when he met the President. It made me quite famous at school when people found out my dad knew the President of the United States. For then, I was the bridge to this unsummed hero, I should be extremely proud of his great achievements because dude, the president!

I was bored.

Gladly I didn't even know Hiccup that time. He could might as well be another person interested in this circle of "super friends" that I was a part of. But I met him after my popularity was all but gone and nobody cared about the son of a famous astrophysician.

In his drawers, I finally find dad's pictures. The ones he doesn't find the nerves of placing in an album because they are too special for anyone else to see.

The first picture I take is of Emma. She is at the slide at (mom's) Dr. Mary Howard's (green and dripping life) garden. Emma's smile is almost toothless; she was two back then. There are some marks on the paper, like if something dripped here. Dad must have cried for this picture. Just like I am doing right now.

The next picture is of me. I was ten here. Shirtless on an Australian beach, smiling with my thumbs up. My hair was still brow, long before I dyed it.

Then one of mom. Actually mom, smiling, but never looking at the camera. She stares at the two kids in the background, baby Emma and me playing at the kitchen, out of focus.

Dad and mom, not arguing, not fighting, dad probably drunk, but mom still smiles. I was still somewhere before Earth itself. They are the example of what a young couple should be at this picture.

Just Emma again. Then Emma and me. Just me, hair finally white. Emma and her ballet outfit. Mom and dad. Mom and Dad and me. Mom and Dad and Emma.

Finally the four of us. Jumping and dancing with dragons over dad, mom chasing us with her long skirt flitting behind her, reminding me of a bird. Emma's screams and giggles flashes through me, just like mom's hug and dad's jokes and bites at my leg, pretending he was a dragon and I was the knight in the shining armor, Emma was the princess I had to save, as mom was the ultimate queen…

I hide my face in my hands, trying to conceal back all my tears, trying not to conceal my tears. I cry and smile. I cry and sob. Just cry.

Just stop breathing.

I shut the drawer when I am sure I cannot stay here any longer.


	21. Chapter 21

**Ugh, long pause, I know**

 **Double update, making up for a really shitty crapppy dup du dee past couple months ^-^**

 **DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING BUT MY DIGNITY.**

 ***Actually, rephrase, I own nothing at all.**

* * *

 **Twenty-One**

The house shrinks and the walls close around me. I want to walk away, or better yet, run away, or even better, steal dad's car keys, disappear through the front door and drive until I crash somewhere and explode in a tragic accident. People will talk about it in the news if the car explode.

Especially if the car explode.

However, I am trapped at dad's walls and pictures and freaking ghosts. I feel just like dad right now, making his exercises for his anxieties attacks. Breathe in; breathe out. Repeat.

It works. The house stops shrinking, but I'm still trapped. I can't see dad. He'll make questions for why my eyes are glassy, why my face is red and why it looks like I'm having a panic attack.

Which I probably am.

I dig my pockets for my phone, the blue light glowing smoothly at the screen. Hiccup sent me eight messages. I open them in despair.

Mostly they resume in " _text me; Hey, how are you?; Miss you; call me; where the Hell ARE YOU?_ "

Okay, he might be freaking up a bit. My shaky fingers run over the screen, pressing several key words to ease the nerves and hitting send.

 _Sorry, Miss u too :(_

He probably won't get it any time soon. It's late already. But I can still hear dad typing at his notebook at the living room. My mind screams for me to keep distance from him, but my body doesn't obey. I step on the living room before I can hold myself back, and sink at the couch face-first.

"Hey, son." I hear his voice. Almost like it was, (centuries) seven years ago. "Trouble sleeping?" He asks. When I don't answer (I don't even move my face off the pillow I'm in, hoping to choke to death, maybe), he stands, making his way to me slowly. "I have just the thing you need."

He disappears behind the kitchen for something like five minutes. _You have no idea what I need_ , I think. I hear the sound of metal, pans and gurgling. I count every single second until he comes back.

"Your mom taught me some things when I needed the most." I finally lift my head from the pillow. It feels like a stone. "It's tea, come on."

He lifts the mug, and I sit myself straight on the couch before taking it from his hands.

"Thanks." I say.

He nods with a small grin. "You mom gave me those when I couldn't sleep. I have insomnia too, you know." It's like if he was trying to teach me how to walk again. I can't run anywhere now, so I just let him. I take a sip from the mug. It tastes like sugar and mint. "It saved me many times."

"I can see why." I say, looking at the dark circle inside the mug. I can still feel his gaze at me.

"You know what I was thinking?" (No, I have no idea; I am not inside your head. And I hope I never get inside your head). "It's been a while since the last time we went to Nana's Overland. I think maybe we should go there, spend the weekend."

Nana Overland is a seventy-year-old grandmother I happen to have. Her home is close to a lake in Maine. When I was younger, Mom and Dad would take Emma and me to spend a weekend at her house during summer vacations. Emma loved there. We would go there at the winter breaks too, when the lake would be frozen and we could skate and play snowball wars.

It was pretty much my safety place after a whole year of school abuse and social wrecks. Now it is like if Emma's ghost could somehow break through the ground to haunt me if I get too close.

But maybe not with Hiccup.

Dad is still talking. "…so I was thinking that we should go there next weekend, you know? Take a break, breathe some air, forget about things…"

"Can Hiccup come too?" I ask before he finish his sentence. He blinks at me twice before making a nasty face with his nose. He is about to say no when I speak again. "Please, it will be frozen there now, I promised him I would teach him how to skate."

Total lie, perfect excuse.

"Sure, why not?" He finally answers. I smile.

I finish the mug in another ten minutes, and we just stay silent as the tea burns down my throat. I give him the empty mug; then I lay backwards on the couch, facing the ceiling. He pops in and out the room, grabbing his notebook before placing a kiss on my forehead, leaving the room.

I finally sigh. Everything feels lighter when no one is around. My thoughts spin and wander around with everything. I imagine a thousand reason to go. A thousand reasons to stay. Go where? Nana's Overland. College. Out that door is tempting. Heaven. Or Hell, most likely.

Before I can see Emma's magical appearance, my phone buzzes and screams beneath my pillow. I grab it drunkenly, typing the password and flipping the screen until I open Hiccup's message.

Hiccup: Hey, how are things in heaven? Good to know you are alive, dumb ass.

I pretend I'm laughing, even that he cannot see it.

Me: It's great. Wish you were here, though.

Hiccup: I wish you were here. Earth is sooooooo lonely… :(

Me: Sounds like Heaven right now.

Hiccup: Is it really that bad with your dad?

Deep breath.

Me: Could be worse.

Hiccup: That is almost good, if you think about it.

Me: Not good enough, but I'll live.

Hiccup: You better do. I miss you.

Me: Miss you too. By the way, news! Dad is taking me to Nana's Overland next weekend.

Long pause.

Hiccup: That's great, Jack :)

Me: I asked him to let you come too.

Long pause again.

Hiccup: I'll think about it.

Me: Come on, you have to go. I asked, he agreed, what's there to think about?

Hiccup: I can't just leave here, you know? Some of us have parents at home.

Me: You won't just leave, you're just spending a weekend out.

Hiccup: Jack…

Me: Hic.

Me again: Do it for me.

Not so awkward pause.

Hiccup: Okay.

*Silently cheering*

Hiccup: I gotta go to sleep; I'll see you tomorrow, right?

Me: For sure. I can't wait :)

And no, none of us goes to sleep. None of us wants to stop talking. We text for something like an hour. It takes another hour to finally say our good byes. Then I drift to the sweet lands of the sleeping pills' magic and dreamless hours.


	22. Chapter 22

**Like I said, double update YAAAY**

* * *

 **Twenty-Two**

Everything is out of order when I wake up. Someone pranked me or just kidnapped me when I was asleep, because my bed is at the wrong place, just as the door and the furniture. It takes a few moments for me to realize I am at (my dad) Professor Overland's house.

"Dad?" The word sounds weird, unnatural.

I hear nothing at first. Then the rushed steps when dad pops at the room, holding a pan at his hands, something boiling at it.

"Good morning, son." He says. I yelp, stretching my arms, spinning my neck in a circle until the black dots evaporate from my blurry vision. "Did you sleep well?"

Thumbs up. Smile on his face. Everything is fine.

Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.

My stomach roars for food. My legs scream to stand. My mind begs to leave. The clock at the wall shows that it is ten o'clock. Only one more hour.

I jump out of the couch. The corridor to the kitchen is so long I could run a marathon through it. It gets longer as I walk at it, but not for long.

(Dad) Professor Overland is frying eggs at the same pan I saw a few minutes ago. I imagine myself grabbing it from his hands and swinging it through the kitchen, hitting it at any furniture I could have the luck to reach.

"Sit down, let's have breakfast." He says. I obey like a trained dog. "Are your things ready? Your mom is coming in one hour."

I nod. He stays silent as he turn the eggs on pan several times, grabs milk and pours it into another pan, beats everything up with a fork, makes a mix of honey over pancakes, spreading the smell of fake sugar through the kitchen.

He could be a cook if he wanted. So far, his meals don't taste like garbage or that tasteless hospital food. When he places the food on the table, I eat it all at once at the beginning, and then slow down as he simply stares at me from the other side of the table.

Silence is bad. Silence means he is planning to say something like locking me down here, that he'll try again what he did yesterday, or that maybe he has breaking news that are going to crumble everything down.

I finish eating, waiting for the worst.

Nothing happens.

"How is school?" He asks.

"Like hell."

"Did you turn in your application yet?" He leans backwards.

I shake my head. "Not yet, I'm still deciding where I should go."

He nods. He seems… lost.

"I have no idea of how to talk to my son anymore." He says that with a sad grin. It does not makes things heavy, though. "What do you want to do as we wait for your mother?"

…run and meet her midway home.

"Can we try to talk?" He offers.

(No, talking makes me sad because we have no idea of what communication means anymore) "Sure."

"Say the first word that pops in your head." He says.

Stupid/killer/stupid/suicide/stupid/homicide/stupid/idiot/stupid/

Kill yourself/stupid/dangerous/stupid/Hiccup/Emma/hang/razors

"Snow."

He looks at me for a moment. "Do you still play in the snow?" It is not a critic but feels exactly like one.

"I would play with Emma every time I could."

He swallows and forces down the certain thoughts in his throat. I pretend I did not see it.

"You miss her, don't you?" I wave my head. "Let's change subject."

SOMEONE GIVE HIM A PRIZE!

"Okay. Are we really going to Nana's Overland?" I ask something completely different.

"Sure, I'll call her today, have your things packed for the weekend. We'll be leaving at morning."

"You said Hiccup can come too, right?" I say, trying (failing) to hide the hopeful tone in my voice.

"Sure." He knows everything without realizing any.

Too soon for dad, too late for me, the clock shows 10:45 A.M. I stand and turn, he nods and reads.

I change my clothes in the bathroom, putting on my traditional blue hoodie and a pair of grey-green jeans. I can't stop my eyes from staring the fresh cuts in the skin over my ribs and hipbones.

Hiccup will kill me if he ever sees them.

It stings when my hands rub them, but not when I press them. I can hide them, hopefully.

Mom surprises me by not showing any signs of being drunk or restless. If anything, she is on her best make up and her clothes are wonderfully neat.

Dad hugs me one last time, whispering a quick "I love you" at my ears. I nod and leave the house, not fast enough.

My other surprise is that my car is parked at (dad's) Professor Overland's entrance.

"Hey, honey." (Mom) Dr. Howard says. She is not even at the driver's seat, instead she fix her things to the floor of the passenger's seat. "How did it go?"

"Fine…" It barely goes louder than a mutter. "Mom, what are you doing?"

She stares at the windshield for a moment.

"I thought it could be a nice surprise if I let you drive back home."

I blink a few times. I convince my mind that I'm breathing air and not carbon monoxide, that my feet are not going to sink in the ground, before nodding.

"Okay…" I whisper.

She smiles, leaning in to kiss my cheeks before I grab the steering wheel just like you would hold a newborn baby. Or an activated bomb.

The car does not go off. I drive like in autopilot all the way to mom's house, not really noticing where I am. She talks and talks the entire way, and I make a mental note of sticking a voice recorder on the car's panel so I can hear what she says when she is not around.

"…so I know that your dad can be exhaustive, but it's great that you stay in touch with him."

"Uh-huh," I pretend I'm listening as I take out the seat belt, barely stepping out of the car when something tackles me to the window.

Hiccup's scent is the first thing that makes me realize it is him.

I hug him back, enjoying the feeling of his body against mine again. Almost oblivious to my mom's presence.

"Hey, I missed you too." I chuckle before turning slightly to the right, so he can see Dr. Howard sending an amused/weird look at us. He jumps out of the hug.

He punches my arm, playfully. "Idiot."

I drop my clothes over my bed, not really caring about what to do with them. Hiccup follows me closely.

"So, tell me about that next weekend you said last night." He leans against a wall, crossing his arms.

"Do you remember when I told you about my Nana Overland? Her house in the lake?"

He nods. "I know where it is, just… what are we going to do in there?"

"Ahh spend the weekend, maybe?" He rolls his eyes to my sarcasm. I shake my head when I notice that he furrows his eyebrows, if not trembling his lips for a bit. I walk towards him, gingerly. I grab his hands softly, pulling them around my neck, them placing my hands around his waist. I rest my forehead in his. "Hey, it will be alright. It's only a weekend."

"I know it's only a weekend, it's just…" He laces his hands together behind my neck. "With my leg and everything, and meting your grandmother, you know I hate meeting new people."

I chuckle. "You'll do fine." I kiss his nose, and the shadow of a smile crosses his face. "By the way, your biggest interaction will probably be with her dog, if he's not dead yet. Plus, your leg won't be a problem in there, I promise. I'll even carry you around if I have to."

He giggles, pulling me a bit closer. "Sounds like I'll end up liking being there."

"Sure you will." I close the gap between our lips.

He tastes like lemon and mint. I end up getting addicted to his taste and his scent. We hear a few steps outside, which saves us two seconds before mom swung the door open, both of us completely separated and with the most innocent expressions on our faces.

The day proceeds with lunch, finishing saving my clothes, getting my backpack ready for school and rushing to the lake with Hiccup.

He grabs my hand when we are halfway in the woods behind our houses.

I pull him close, and pecking his nose once, chuckling, and then running. He chases me, and so we run through the forest, our hands finding support in the trees and branches that we find in the way to the lake.

For a moment, there is no Emma. There are no thoughts or memories of dad, just me and Hiccup, running. The woods and the snow like a corridor that rushes beneath our feet. The wind brushing his fingers in our skin.

Just us.

When we reach the lake, Hiccup jumps over my back, laughing. I hold him, spinning and spinning when I have no idea of how to impress him until my feet get lost in themselves and we both slid on the snow, lifting a cloud of earth and snow that slowly falls over our tangled bodies. We both laugh.

Then laughs turn into chuckles and giggles as I stare into his green eyes. They are glassy, but not sad. Not broken. They mirror the trees, the snow, and the frozen lake. They reflect mine, and I imagine this infinite loop of mirrors between our eyes.

"You know, I think it's a great time for you to kiss me." He says beneath me.

I count every single one of his freckles, kissing all of them, before reaching for his lips.

We get lost in ourselves. I peck him at his cheeks, his nose and his forehead. He runs his hands through my back, pulling me closer each second, biting his lips to make me even more desperate, and bringing me back to his mouth.

We part breathless. His eyes are half-open, pulling a lovely smile with them. He is blushing, detaching his freckles even more, like little stars on his face. His fingers are shaking when they touch my face.

"I think I'm falling in love with you." He whispers.

A fire tornado burns inside my chest, but it is the best feeling I could ever hope for. I smile against his lips once.

"I think I already fell for you." I say, before leaning up again for his lips.

Then I stop myself.

"What?" He asks, his eyebrows furred with indignation.

"We haven't made it official yet." I say, standing on my knees.

"What do you mean?" He ask, also standing, but straight on his feet. He offers his hand to pull me up. I only hold them, not getting up. "Eh… Jack, what are you doing?" He asks.

I can almost feel the burning in my cheeks.

"Making it official." I say. His eyes jump wide open. "Hiccup Haddock." I don't have to find words. They are always there every time I look at him. "You have no idea of how many times I could do this and still think it will never be enough." His expression softens, his eyes turn glassy. I take the golden bishop from my pocket, and gingerly place it on his hands. His eyes turn wide open with the small and stupid memories related to the chess piece. "Dr. Lawrence told me to find something special to hold on to every time I feel like slipping out of reality. It took me a while, but… It is you, Hiccup." He blows a breathless sigh. "Hiccup, would you make me the happiest man in the world…? Hiccup, would you be my boyfriend?"

His face turns into a mess of surprise, tears and a smile he hides with one hand. He turns just as red as me, gasping in a suppressed laugh. It says everything but adorable.

He waves his head in a yes.

He finally lets out the giggles explode with his happiness, freeing his mouth from his hands. I stand on my feet, right in moment he jumps for me, his arms lacing my neck, his legs spread behind him as I spin him in endless circles, holding him as tight as I can before I can kiss him.

"Yes, yes, yes! A hundred times yes!" He says before kissing me again, still above me from the position I am holding him.

We both smile like fools.

He is mine, and I am his. And no matter how broken we are, we make each other stronger.


	23. Chapter 23

**Only lit moods and happines on this chapter.**

* * *

 **Twenty-Three**

The house is almost empty when I get back inside. Hiccup finds his seat in the couch as I climb the stairs. The air feels heavy, like if it is made of metal. I look through the corridors. Something is out of place.

Emma's door is open.

I instantly freeze where I am standing. However, my feet still move me forwards. The corridor grows longer and narrow, but eventually, I reach the door.

Mom is laying near her bed. There is no vodka, no drinks, no cigarettes. Only her sobs. And Emma's stuffed bear. She hugs it, smells it, dropping tear after tear over the stuffed animal's head, like if it could be brought back to life to sing and giggle with Emma's vocal cords.

I feel my own tears jumping.

"You should get in there." I am not going crazy. I am hearing her voice just as clear as mom's sobs. Emma is supporting her shoulder at the wall next to me. "Go on, it's the least you can do after killing me."

I send her an incredulous and deadly glare before turning my head to the room. I step in, mom doesn't even hear it. She doesn't notice. I'm breathing Emma's suffocating scent here. I can feel her even more lividly than what I feel of her dead/frozen ghost. Mom only shows difference when I touch her shoulder, kneeling next to her.

Her expression is a shattered glass, turned back into sand, irreparable. It mirrors me.

Our arms swung forward as we hug each other, tears raining down our faces, falling on my shoulders.

"I'm sorry." I cry the words between the hug. She holds me tighter. "I'm so sorry."

She press her head on my neck, waving our bodies from one side to another. She used to do it since I can remember, and Emma did just as the same.

"It was an accident." I hear her mutters.

She is lying. She has to be.

Or maybe not, maybe it was an accident. Maybe it was out of my control. Maybe it miraculously wasn't my fault. Maybe I didn't kill my sister.

No, I did. Emma tells me I did. She came back to torment me with the truth. Her word is final.

I spend something like an hour hugging her like this. Hiccup gets bored and climbs the stairs after me, gasping and staring wide eyed to the scene. He also cries. I also chopped off his leg.

I was not meant to know what I did. I was supposed to do therapy sessions and believe everything is going to be okay.

Girl dies in car crash.

Someone just opened my brain and washed it with the truth.


	24. Chapter 24

**Dubble update! Just becausse I've been, you know, "busy" LOL kidding, I really was, nearly forgot about the the story _**

* * *

 **Twenty-Four**

The air still tastes like metal and blood, and Hiccup offers me to spend the night at his house. I had to tuck mom to bed, considering her legs were about to dismount beneath her like wooden bricks.

Hiccup watches me, silently as I stuff my backpack with clothes, closing it in record time, creating cracks around the room every time I touch, step and look at something.

Until his arms lace themselves around my waist. He rests his forehead at my back, pulling himself closer to me. I sigh before gingerly holding his arms, but not removing them.

"It will be alright." He mutters. I nod, once, twice, three times until another tear starts forming, then I step away from his embrace.

I throw the backpack around my shoulders, and he follows me quietly out of the room. He is afraid that if he says something, this superhuman fingers may open cracks at him. I wish he hugged me again as we walk out of the house.

His mom is sitting in the couch when we step into his house, book open, TV off. His dad is probably working until late again. I keep forgetting about how Hiccup's house is full of stuffed animal's heads, the pride of the Haddock's family.

A pride Hiccup never possessed, much to his father dislike. Even that he tries to hide it, Hiccup clearly resents his father for the pride he never had towards him. He avoid talking that much about it, and never seems happy when the huge stubborn man is near.

"Hey Jack." His mom greets me when he leads me inside. I nod, forcing my cheeks upward.

She and Hiccup change a symbolic heavenly sign of _avoid talking_ , and she hugs me once before fleeing upstairs. I look at Hiccup, who sees right through my eyes.

"Let's just get to bed." He mutters, grabbing my hand and leading me to his room at the second floor, apparently exhausted.

I begin to ask a thousand apologies for him for the horror show at my house, but he dismisses all of them with a million kisses when we reach his room.

"It's over now." He says, holding my face with both his hands. He pulls me once for a quick kiss. "Come on, get changed."

He steps away, scavenging his closet after his clothes. He only grabs a plain white T-shirt, stripping off his pants, jacket and staying only in his grey boxers before putting on his shirt and leaving to reach the bathroom.

I slap my face to stop the redness, which I mentally curse myself for. _Gosh, we had sex already, what is wrong with me?_ I stay only in my boxers and a blue shirt.

When he comes back, we slip into his bed, and I barely have time to make myself comfortable before he rests his head on my shoulder, his arms around my torso. I chuckle before pulling him closer, kissing his forehead.

"What is your wish to cut now?" I ask, also cursing my mind for such a heavy question.

It's not like he was going to be honest now.

"Zero."

But I smile anyway, breathing in his scent. My own cuts don't hurt right now, but I'll never comment about them. He doesn't need to know. _No cutting for the struggling-self-harmer guy's boyfriend._

I kiss his temple before blackness takes me away.

* * *

Waking up cuddling to Hiccup in his bed is the most amazing/terrifying/wonderful surprise ever. I smash his alarm at six o'clock, punching the damned thing like if at any minute it could wake up the dead to run into his room. But it ends before the fourth beep. No dead men in his room today.

He lazily moves over my chest, rolling around himself until his eyes meet mine, drunk in sleep.

"Hey." We whisper to one another, too afraid to speak louder to don't break the particles of matter around us. "How did you sleep?" I ask.

He nods once, burying his head on my chest. "Well. You?"

I kiss his forehead, pulling him closer into a hug.

"Jack, I have a question." He says, his mind probably firing up with the subject.

"What is it?" I stroke his hair out of his forehead.

"We are still keeping this-" He gestures to our cuddled bodies "-a _secret_ , right?" He hesitates a bit in the ending.

"If you want to." I tell him, mentally begging him to. I don't want any more attention to ourselves. "I really hope so."

He sends me a sleepy shut smile before leaning up to kiss my lips. "So you're better get up." Then his hands splits the air to reach my shoulders, pushing me away until I'm grabbed by gravity's fingers, my back hitting the floor with a muffled sound. He laughs.


	25. Chapter 25

**Twenty-Five**

The day goes like a blur. Classes, lunch, classes, home. Run from mom, run from Emma, run from ourselves, sleep with Hiccup, my bed this time. Start again. Classes, lunch, classes, torture, going home beneath the snow. Snowball wars and cuddling in the ground. Cry sometimes.

Hide at school. Hide at home. Hide my cuts from Hiccup, they're almost healing now.

Hide, hide, hide until it is Friday.

When the school halls are empty before last class, I steal the first kiss near his locker. He blushes, and pulls away.

"Not here." He whispers, grinning.

I smile before kissing his temple and leaving for my final class (trig, failed again). I hold the golden bishop during the entire class until I can stuff everything inside my backpack and flee through the door.

And Hiccup is not waiting near the car. Neither in the crowd that fights to break out the doors to the street, nor in the few luckless people who leave late, nor in the parking yard, nor anywhere.

Not in the Folstenrooms, not in his last class (physics), not waiting in the car. Not answering my messages that I text him. I shut my eyes and curse my spirits before jumping into the car and starting the engine.

Snow and rain mix together, and starts raining over the windshields. He is not in the way home. Not in the street.

But the lights of his kitchen are on.

I pull in (mom's) Dr. Howard's driveway, and sprint to the house next door, rain splashing on my head. There is an invisible spirit that rub its fingers through me as I enter the front door without knocking. He left it unlocked.

"Hiccup?" I ask. The kitchen is the only illuminated room in the house. "Hiccup?" I speak louder.

I see the red river on his bare ribs, the shirtless frame painted on bruises, the razors near the bottle of vodka. I see the knife, silver and wood.

My feet roll the world beneath me, making craters in the ground at each step until I'm by his side. His eyes are open, dried tears and red cheeks.

The smell of alcohol breaks into my nose.

"Hiccup!" I scream, and his eyes fight to focus on mine. I put my hands over his open skin, and he yelps in pain.

He can still feel pain. The bottle of vodka is still nearly full near him. What's missing isn't enough to get someone drunk, not even someone as small as Hiccup.

I hold his face with both my hands.

"What did you do?" My voice cracks, my eyes burn with upcoming tears. When he doesn't answer, I run to grab a warm washcloth, and clean the blood of his ribs. He cries silently as I do it.

"I couldn't do it." He does not stutter. His voice is heavy and filled with sadness, but strong as a hammer. "I'm sorry; I couldn't do it, Jack."

I rub his blushed cheeks with my thumbs. I can't remember ever seeing him like this, so… defeated.

"They locked me up at the locker rooms. They saw us kissing in the corridors. They beat me up and told me to kill myself, just like they used to before the crash." A long pause. "I couldn't finish it. I couldn't press it down." He raises his wrists. Small scratches mark the skin, where the knife certainly brushed its metal coldness, aiming for his pulse. "It would be better if I could have done it."

I gasp in despair, not being able to hold my tears anymore. I pull him against my chest, wrapping my arms around his neck.

"Please, Hiccup, stop!" I can barely understand what I'm saying, the words are lost in sobs. "What… what would I do if I lose you?" I hold his face so he is looking straight to me. "I can't lose you Hiccup, please!"

His eyebrows furrow, but in anger.

"Why can't you just let me go?!" He shouts. "Why can't you just accept the fact that it will NEVER end? Why can't you just let me finish it and just go?!"

"Because I love you!" My scream shatters the windows. "Because you are the only person I care about in the world, and because I can't go on without you! You're all I have left!"

His eyes snap wide open in surprise. Defeated.

Rain pour down his eyes, silently, and everything we do for a moment is stare, cracks forming through our faces and tearing our minds apart. Until I finally sob the words:

"I love you, Hic." His features grow in rage and death, but he pulls himself against me, slamming our lips together.

"I love you, Jack." He whispers, and I hold him like if he could tear apart in my arms.

The kiss is anger, sad and needy, flood by all the tears that pour in our face, but it doesn't end. Not even when he laces his arms around my neck, and his legs wrap themselves around my hipbones.

I hold him by his back before pulling myself to my feet, and carry him in my lap in the way to his room.

Somehow, I find myself in his bed, and we gasp and kiss even more eagerly than before. His lips feel like fire against mine, and the feeling spread to the rest of my body, like waves, it wraps itself around my bones and makes me even needier.

His hands find their way to my cheeks, neck, and removing my shirt. I kiss all the injured skin on his torso; the cuts for long have stopped bleeding. He strips me off my clothes, pulling me closer in this passionate dance before pulling down his own pants. He never stops kissing me, and I hold on to him, less willing to let him go at each kiss.

* * *

It is still raining outside. There is a faint blue light breaking in through his window. Hiccup is curled up against me, his fingers brushing my bare chest. I hold his naked body against mine, the afterglow sets on the room as I breathe in his scent. I am growing addicted to it.

"I missed this." He says after a long time.

"What?" I ask.

"This. Cuddling with you… especially naked." He raises his head so he can kiss the skin in my neck, sending butterflies curl around my shivers.

"I missed that too." I bend my head to look at him. His eyes are closed, peaceful, but smiling. Beautiful.

"When do we leave tomorrow?" He asks, his eyes are still closed.

"By morning. My dad will pick us up."

"You had to bribery him to let me come, hadn't you?" He opens his eyes; a mischievous smile spreads through his features.

"Almost, it would be my next shot." I say. "I guess he wanted to stay alone with me."

"Maybe I should stay…" I can feel he is slipping.

"No, please!" I will feel the whiplash later for turning my neck to him so fast. "I can't stand to be alone with him. Please, Hiccup, I need you."

He blushes, but lets out an unhappy sigh. "Fine. But you owe me one."

I chuckle. "I owe you everything."

I turn him on his back, supporting my head in one elbow so I can look at him. I peck his lips once. Then again, more slowly.

"Hic." I gasp between a kiss. "Promise me you'll never try to do it again."

The kisses stop. He is not looking at me, instead he keeps his eyes closed, tensed.

"I couldn't live without you." When did I became so full of feelings? "I would lose my mind if you weren't here. I love you." I peck his lips. They kiss me back. "And I need you."

His eyes slowly open. They are not sad, exactly. However, hopeful. "Okay."

A smile flashes through me. Before I can go all cheesy again, he places his hand on my face, pulling me closer to him.

"But you'll have to say that you love me more often." He whispers in my ear, leaving my lips empty. "I may end up forgetting it."

"You'll make me regret that, right?" I say.

"Yeah." He chuckles before kissing me.


	26. Chapter 26

Long time no posting, sorry...  
Lots of personal progress lately, so yaay  
I've been promised a work trip next month, but rule #1: never trust promises. They break as easily as they are made ;) Let's hope it all goes well

Cuddly cute chapter for yall

* * *

 **Twenty-Six**

I do not remember sleeping this close to him before.

Not when I asked him as my boyfriend and not when we had sex for the first time. But it still feel like a bless to hold him so tightly against me, his arms laced above the pillow, my hands rubbing his naked back.

But unfortunately, the Earth insists in spinning towards the morning, earlier than what I wanted, and all the enchantments of electricity and gravity and rotation makes his alarm go off.

"Morning." He whispers, resting his head on my chest after smashing his alarm.

"Morning you." I reply, joining our lips in a good-morning kiss. I think I'll always feel this way every time I kiss him, this euphoria and anxiousness before pressing his lips. I can't get enough of it. "Ready for today?"

He sighs, breathing in my chest. "As ready as I'll ever be, I guess." My fingers climb from his back to the base of his neck, locking against the locks of his hair. "But can we just wait a few minutes? I don't want to rush this."

My grin splits my face in two. "As long as you want." I whisper before switching our positions, so I'm between his legs as we close the gap between our mouths in a light kiss.

The feeling of something warm and hard against my hips reminds me we are still naked. We both blush a deep shade of red.

We dress ourselves faster than what we normally would, and Hiccup grabs his bags before sprinting to the exit. His mom is in the kitchen, pouring herself a cup of coffee and not even surprised to see (the guy who sleeps with her son) me coming downstairs.

"Good morning sweetie." She says, lowering the newspaper to look at us. The air tastes like metal and fuel. It is heavy, enough to make my feet lost and my head dizzy. "Had a good night, Jack?" She asks.

I nod and grin. "Yes, Mrs. Haddock, thanks."

"Do you guys have everything ready for today?" She says, her eyes still locked on me. Hiccup nods this time.

"Our bags are ready since yesterday. Mom, have you seen my grey shirt? I couldn't find it."

Sometimes I wonder how much Hiccup resents his mother. None at all like right now, or just enough like yesterday. Apparently, hatred itself has its own mood.

"I washed it yesterday, honey, it should be dry by now." She tells him as sweetly as ever.

As we sit around the table for breakfast, I imagine a spoiled Hiccup. I imagine his mom reading stories for him to sleep. I imagine she kissing his forehead and cheeks every time they went outside. I imagine his first cut. I imagine if she has ever seen one. I imagine that, if so, how she must've felt.

A complete failure.

I make a mental note, hugging my mom more often.

As we finish our bowl of cereal, we chat about a hundred things we could do at Nana's Overland. Like skating. Toasting marshmallows on a campfire. Cuddling beneath the stars on the clear night sky (although I can't say this thought out loud).

As soon as we hear my dad's car on the driveway, Hiccup and I jump out of our seats, grabbing our trunks before he can kiss his parents one last time.

My mom is waiting outside the house. She looks at me, grinning. Usually I would just enter the car, but for some reason I watch my legs crossing the war zone until her. I step on the grass, and they scream in sorrow as I approach my mom.

My arms also create their own mind, my whole body is acting on its own as I hug her and kiss her goodbye.

"Stay safe." She says. As I imagined, my mom's brown eyes are glassy.

"I will."

My dad slams the steering wheel, buzzing me that we _have to go_ before I step away and turn on my heels towards the car. I am not sure exactly if there is a manual of _where-to-sit-on-your-dad's-car-that-you-don't-enter-for-years-plus-you-have-an-occasional-best-friend/boyfriend-with-you_ , but I sit next to Hiccup on the backseat.

I stare at my dad's icy blue eyes, as he hides his angst and smiles at Hiccup once, greeting him and asking if he's excited and if he is nine when his life-standing joke of crocodiles driving on his seat does not make us laugh anymore.

But Hiccup does. He goes according to plan and a car-world war is avoided. And when we pull away from his driveway, we stare for a second that feels like hours, all the promises we are yet to make floating between our eyes.


	27. Chapter 27

Dubble update, cus... why not? I've been off so long anyways  
I'll try to get the next chapter untill next week - or at least I hope so. No promises, no compromises, no heartbreaks ;)

* * *

 **Twenty-Seven**

The road to Nana's Overland is a mess of random curves and trees that curl inside the highway. The snow threatens to fall over our heads as we drive. The smallest disturbance could cause the end of the world, but it does not happen.

Hiccup smiles during the whole time as dad drives, the world spins ahead of us, like a white-grey corridor that multiplies into possibilities.

It is exhaustive.

Dad lets us choose the travel soundtrack. And folk music starts playing. Eventually, the branches gain life with the music and lead our way until obliviousness.

We stop in small gas stations; dad refuels and lets us choose tasteless food from the convenience shop. Back in the road. It goes for hours that loose themselves in the snow and dance with the wind. Time laughs at us as it runs. It stops, freezes and speeds up.

Dad realizes this, his tired eyes scan the rearview until they meet mine. And as soon as he gets an opportunity, he speeds up.

Hiccup yelps and I scream, but not in fear. The tires are made for ice, and so the car flows through the road.

"Again?" He asks, and as soon as Hiccup yells back, we reach a descent point on the road and the car shoots itself forwards like an arrow.

We scream out lungs out, our insides turning around themselves as the feeling of fall extracts our breath. I imagine Emma next to me, and how would she be screaming with me. For a moment, I feel like all these images from that night are going to come back to me and I'll mess this fragile mood we have just achieved.

I smile.

Hiccup recognizes the next song, and then starts singing as if his life depended on it. And so do I. Dad laughs, Hiccup sings, I watch and mock at his tuneless voice, smiling as this strange warm feeling takes over me.

I fall asleep cuddled to Hiccup at some time during the afternoon. I only wake up when the car stops moving, and the feeling of arrival reaches me.

"Wake up, boys." Dad warns us from the driver's seat. "We're here."

I look around, it's dark outside, but the lights on the house can penetrate the car's windows so I can see Hiccup, already awake and pointing his phone at me. The flash of the camera goes faster than my arm, and he takes a picture before I can cover my face.

"That's one to keep." He says mischievously.

"Awh come on…" I push myself out of the car and into the cold night. The smell of snow, wood and fire curls inside me.


	28. Chapter 28

**...Dealing with ADHD at work... soooooo frustrating, srsly. Tooo many things in your head and you can't focus at any of them properly**

 **Anyways, probably last update before Christmas, so... Merry Christmas everyone! \o/**

* * *

 **Twenty-Eight**

The house breathes memories in and out as I step out of the car. Some of them are from Emma, and they sting like alcohol and fire on an open wound. Hiccup's hand slips into mine after he makes his way to me around the car. I'm standing still for too long.

"Come on." He says, giving himself the first few steps to the entrance.

It is nearly impossible not to laugh at Nana's Overland comic welcome reaction. Dressed on loose boring-pinkish robes, fluffy pantuffs with ears jumping out of the toes and glasses almost as big as her face, the cheeks pulled down towards Earth gravity making her look like an overly-grown bulldog.

Yep, time and snow has affected her as well.

"Jack my dear!" She says, grabbing Hiccup's face with cat-like claws and kissing his chubby cheeks.

"Nana, I'm here, that's my friend Hiccup." My eyebrows furrow and I try to hide the wish to laugh at Hiccup's stupefied expression.

Only then her eyes pierce through the glasses and recognize the unrecognizable. "Oh, I knew there was something different…" She mutters to herself mostly, walking past him with slow unbalanced steps.

"Can't we just step inside first?" My dad yells after grabbing his last bag from the car. "It's freezing out here."

We all rush inside the house, the few snowflakes falling from my shoulders as I take off my coats and scarfs.

As soon as the lights in the house makes sense, I see how Nana Overland has been spending her time. Knitting. Over a hundred furrow nets are spread throughout the house, on the coffee tables, over the kitchen's island, the dinning room tables and at every possible utensils she can cover with multicolored threads, like a spider's web. Eventually, she'll have knitted enough to cover the roof itself.

The chitchat between dad/Nana (his mom), is divided between the news (not Emma, apparently it is too much for her to take all at once), the new acquaintance (Hiccup, she still cannot believe that it is his actual name), where is (my mom) Mary, how I have grown and…

"Where is Emma?" She asks.

The thing about getting old is that even your brain has an expiration date. And hers is on the red right now.

Because when dad explains her what happened, she remembers the funeral. Somehow she has gotten the news when they sank her body in the earth, but eventually, she forgot it. The memory lost somewhere in that thread of knitted blankets. If I dig up hard enough, I could snatch the memory and push it back to her head.

But instead, by hearing 'Emma', Hiccup's brain settings turns from ' _awkward introduction program_ ' to ' _Emma's alert program_ '. His hand slips to mine and he says clearly for me to show the garden I used to play.

I nod once, and my feet follow his commands before my own. I don't even want to go to that stupid garden, but I need to get out of here.

As soon as we slide the glass door to see the snow-covered garden, several stone gnomes guarding the grass. I remember how Emma used to sing to them, they would clap and cheer and ask for encores, but only for her to see.

Only then I notice how heavily I'm breathing. The air is made of iron and my lungs are made of paper. Any minute now, my heart might just stop.

"Just breathe." Hiccup says softly. He makes it sound so easy that I would love to hit him, but I can't even do what he says.

Emma is here, even that I cannot see her.

Hiccup's fingers grab the skin on my cheeks, forcing me to look at him, straight into his eyes. And just for a second, I forget everything.

He leans in to kiss my lips, and that is the first time it doesn't leave me breathless. It makes me breathe again.

"Better now?" He asks, smoothly.

"Yeah." I reply, looking from his eyes to his cheeks, his lips. Everything feels quiet for a second.

He sits next to me; Hell, I did not even know I was on my knees, next to one of those scary gnomes.

"How are you feeling?"

"I don't know." I say, and honestly, I don't. "I feel as if Emma was here, Hic." He keeps himself quiet, only listening. "I feel empty, but at the same time it feels so heavy, I don't even know how I feel." There is something stuck in my throat, because soon I'll start to tear up. "I feel like if she was coming out from behind those trees at any moment, and she'll be screaming for me to go and play with her, but if I go then she'll kill me too." Yep, the tears came. "I am tired. I am so tired of this." The tears only slide down my face, but it's not that mess of sobs and cries, I just stay here. Staring at the trees and letting Hiccup hear every thought that comes to my mind. "I don't know what to do anymore. I don't want to keep pleasing dad and I don't want him to hate me. And I don't want to hate myself as well."

To that, Hiccup finally hugs me, but not pulling me to him, but around my shoulders as if he needed support as well.

"I just want all of this to end." I tell him.

"I know." He says, quietly. "What do you want to do? Like, right here, and right now."

I force a dry laugh. "I just want to collapse, right here and right now."

I can feel his gaze over me. "Then do it. Just… do it with me."

And so we just let go of gravity and right here, right now, our bodies fall backwards on the snowed grass. It's cold, but also soft.

All the weight falls over me as well, but it doesn't crush me as I thought it would. I hold Hiccup next to me, so his arms are laced around my neck as my hands hold him by his waist.


	29. Chapter 29

**Happy new year, everyone! I hope your 2018 means something to ya'll  
I have news: I got in for BYU! Yaaay, which means I can't be gay for as long as I am studying. Lovely!  
The rules says clearly that I can't be caught in any of these acts. Otherwise, if I am not caught and nobody knows... ;)**

* * *

 **Twenty-Nine**

By the time we get off the ground, Dad and Nana Overland are still chatting over the kitchen island. I can't really make out what they are talking about and to be honest I can't really care less.

The guest room is neatly made on the second floor, but only one bed. Hiccup doesn't even comment on it, after we drag our bags upstairs, he simply dress off from his clothes, standing only on his boxers at the other end of the bed, picking up a large bluish-grey T shirt that I recognize as…

"Hey, that one is mine." I say, but I can't say I'm complaining at him for this.

"Yeah, I know." He says, sitting on the center of the bed, his thighs joined but his knees are spread. "It smells like you."

I grin, giving a slow step towards the bed before pulling off my belt and dropping my pants. I try to hide the bulge in my underwear, but then I remember our last night. No pointing at hiding him anything. I strip myself from my upper clothes too. Now we're both equal, and he bites his lower lip, his own growing becoming visible.

"And you look damn sexy in it." I say, leaning over him.

His arms swing around my neck again, and I spread his legs with my knees, holding him by his waist and placing myself between his legs, our favorite position. He leans in to kiss me, and I let him do it again and again, pecking his neck and smelling his sense.

"You know, we c-cant do it h-here…" He says between a moan. I distance my mouth from his skin. "It's your nana's house." His voice sounds breathless.

"I know… But that won't stop me from holding you." I say, a small smirk pulling my lips upwards.

He rolls his eyes, and I reach for the lamp near the bed to turn off the lights. I turn our position, so he's laying over me, our legs attached and our bodies still glued as he pulls my face closer to kiss me.

Only when we are breathless, I look at him through the small light that pierces through the window.

"You are mine." I say, almost possessively, but in a voice that I save only for Hiccup. I can see he is blushing, but also trying to hide his smile. It's adorable.

"All yours." He whispers back to me, kissing me once. "But hey, you're mine too."

I grin again. "All yours." I tell him, and all I can say afterwards is that it was impossibly hard to sleep through tonight.

When I wake up again, the small clock on the headboard states 7:43 AM. Waking up next to Hiccup is no longer surprising, but not less wonderful. But waking up naked is still a bit surprising. Feeling all of his body is a bliss, his skin just feels perfect on mine. The covers make a smooth curve over his shoulders, and he snores lightly on his sleep, so lowly that I can only hear it clearly by leaning in to him.

I don't want this moment to end and I don't let it. I save all of him inside my mind again and again. All of his freckles, his bottom nose, the feeling of his skinny arms around my neck and even the curve of his hips. I am not loosing any of this.

He opens his eyes, first startled, then his gaze meets mine and he smiles.

"Hey." I whisper.

"Hey." He replies, his morning voice is husky and kind of addictive.

"Did you sleep well?" I ask. He nods, rubbing his nose against my neck, curling himself on me and shutting his eyes.

"What time is it?" His voice rasps against his throat and it gives me shivers.

"Really early, you can sleep some more if you want." He nods again, hugging me a bit closer.

"Sleeping is a waste, actually." He says.

"What do you mean?"

He presses his lips against my neck. "It means I want to enjoy this moment." His eyes are pointing down, peacefully looking at our naked bodies and the shape of our tangled legs beneath the covers.

Through the window we can see that it is still snowing. Somewhere right now on Earth, there are kids starving to death in some poor area of the world. Somewhere right now on Earth, some rich people are feasting and eating their own money, but they are so deep in sadness that they won't stop eating. Somewhere right now on Earth, a straight couple is fighting and divorcing and fighting for the children's custody. Somewhere right now on Earth, a boy is lost and crying to the moon and praying to the gods. Somewhere right now on Earth, men are preaching that their beliefs are truest than someone else's. Somewhere right now on Earth, a girl is cutting her wrists and crying out her soul. Somewhere right now on Earth, a child is dying and no one is seeing or someone is too busy to give a damn shit. Somewhere right now on Earth, people are dooming us and wishing for our deaths for what we are doing right now, on Earth.

Because right here on Earth, two boys are cuddling in bed, loving, trying to escape the only place they can't, Earth.

Hiccup's scent is messing up with my brain.


	30. Chapter 30

**So sorry it took so long! Work and studying has been so stressful! I just quit my job, too much harrassment. Life lesson - If it doesn't push you forward, end it, before it ends you! Also, thanks for the comments while I was away xD**

* * *

 **Thirty**

My dad hates the snow. He has dark circles around his eyes and his hair is a complete mess. Several empty coffee cups are spread over the kitchen island. He barely cheers a 'morning' before turning on his socked feet and trembling his fingers. Snow reminds him of his lonely his days and now he'll feel blue the entire weekend. Way to go daddy. Good thing we are only coming back at Tuesday, which gives us enough time to get our minds off his upcoming rampage.

I wonder if he knew the things Hiccup and I do. The way we snuggle up to sleep, the times we had sex, or that we love each other. I wonder if we would accept us.

I seriously doubt it.

There is a small park of life on me today. And apparently, in Hiccup too. So we start our day. Before they are gone so soon in the morning.

So we take the day, slowly. Nana Overland is the last one to wake up, so Hiccup and I run to the entrance when dad's back is turned to us.

The cold wind welcomes us, and we go gladly to its embrace.

We disappear in the snowy woods, running through my (and Emma's) childhood. Her ghost chases me, but I don't let it. Not now. Hiccup's hand in mine makes me strong enough to carry everything in my shoulders, at least for today.

We run through the woods, almost as if we were home (except that several degrees colder). His foot trips on sticks and stones, but he doesn't fall. Or at least not without me to soften his landing.

We don't stop. We don't take our time to breathe; we don't want to breathe. We want to be breathless.

The sun still cuts its light through the horizon, painting the sky in glorious shades of red and gold, and the glowing warmth falls over his auburn locks, his green eyes could be the very spring by the way they shine.

That is when I stop running.

"Jack?" He asks, the edges of his smile crumbling in worry, as if I was going to collapse.

I'm not collapsing. I walk towards him, gingerly cupping his cheeks with my hands, rubbing his skin with my thumb. He is warm from the race, small curtains of smoke climbing through the air from his breath, the end of his teeth visible between his parted lips.

I look at his eyes once before leaning in to place a feather light kiss on his lips, the sunlight breaking through us.

Being with Hiccup is like breathing. You don't realize how you do it. You just do it. And you need it.

Eventually we reach the small lake I used to share with Emma. It is quite similar to the one next to our homes in Burgess, but there is something about here that makes it unique. Perhaps it is Emma's shattered reflection on the ice. She must be playing right here, right now, skating on her tiny shoes.

She watches everything. She watches Hiccup's amazed expression at the lake's beauty. She watches as he leans into me for a kiss. She watches as I grab my backpack over my shoulders and remove two pairs of skating shoes.

She watches as we dance on the ice.

Hiccup's legs are two left ones, but I'm here for this. He laces my neck with his hands as I hold him by his waist, and then we spin in endless circles around the center of the lake.

He is sloppy at first, and he gives small uncertain steps on his own, slowly letting go of my hands. His confidence grows after I play the show off and skate in circles around him as he tries to go a straight line.

He is like a caterpillar. Not so fast, and not for too long, his icy chrysalis crumbles around him in shattered pieces, and he is skating in a lovely fluid manner. We both laugh and scream war promises when we push each other to the frozen ground. We get back to our feet as the world blossoms and blurs around us, and everything that exists is now, Hiccup, the frozen lake, and me.

Eventually we both stop in a tight hug, the very world freezes at this moment when everything is forever.


	31. Chapter 31

**Dubble update because I feel guilty :) Hope you guys enjoy it**

 **BTW, I just wish my coming out story was like that...**

* * *

 **Thirty-One**

The trip back to Nana Overland is slow and full of stolen kisses and small giggles. We only separate our hands when we reach the forest entrance, where all of our sins are kept in secret.

Dad's speech about how our escape was irresponsible and reckless lasts for a minute, and as soon as he is over, we rush to the kitchen, were the dishes are alive as Nana Overland prepares the lunch. Emma's hands would be grabbing the nearest spoon and diving it into the saucepan and sipping it slowly to not burn her tongue.

I shake my head, I shake the thoughts away enough so I can see enough of where I am. I'm still not entirely sure that Emma will not jump on me now.

The discussion on the table is kicked from one side to another, which means dad and Nana Overland talk as Hiccup and me watch the topics changing between relatives news, relatives problems, relatives visits…

"They will be here tonight." Nana Overland announces at dad, but the news crash over me like a meteor.

Dad's side of the family is coming to Nana Overland. Which means the unwelcome uncle North will be coming with the unwelcome aunt Anna and my unwelcome cousins.

At least if I was home, then they would never be officially welcome.

Dad also doesn't take the news on his best mood. Ever since the beginning of times, dad and uncle North can't stand each other. At least not for real, and the competition between them goes from who has the best career (Uncle North), who is the wealthiest (Uncle North), who has the biggest dick (I hope I never know who wins this one), and who has the best family, which used to be dad…

Who stands from the table and walks away, the silence falling over the kitchen with more weight than ever.

Whenever a stressor comes to dad, he sinks behind his computer and waits for all the problems of the world to disappear after a hundred clicks and distracting himself with work. It does not happen as well as he expects.

So the bulletproof subject is sent by the coronel (Nana Overland) to deactivate the living bomb called dad.

I just go to his room as silently as I can.

"Hey dad." I tell him.

He only nods at me, not even saying a word.

"Are you alright?" I ask.

"I'm fine." He replies, his voice mixed by the sound of his fingers typing on the keyboard of his notebook.

"Just came to check." I say after a while, already turning on my heels to leave the room when-

"Hold on a minute." His voice travels the space between us and ties my feet to the floor I'm standing. I mentally curse. "I think I need to talk to you, son."

I bit my lips in a twisted expression of suppressed anger. Breathe in, breathe out.

I sit next to him on the bed.

"Any escape plans for tonight?" He says, and I take a moment to realize he is joking. "My brother is coming here, which means we'll have to play the good guys tonight."

He speaks my mind, almost. Boy, I hate being reminded of how much we're the same.

"Well, I don't have any escape plans, but… It's not too hard to drop the chandelier on them, is it?" I suggest. My dad laughs, hitting my shoulder.

"I don't think it'll be available, but it's a nice plan." I smile weakly. "But seriously, we need to try and keep it cool, at least for tonight."

I nod.

"How is Hiccup liking here?" He tells me.

For obvious reasons, mentioning Hiccup blocks my vocal chords immediately. "S-So far he is loving it. I ah… I took him to the lake Emma and I used to go."

"That's good." He says. "Did you make it official yet?"

My neck will break if I turn it so fast again. "What?"

"You and him. Are you guys official yet?" He asks it so simply I want to punch him. I could A, open up right now; B, play the innocent; C, best choice, keep it sarcastically hidden.

"Oh yeah, we are going to get married at fall and have kids at thirty."

"Good, but don't forget you still have to go to college, and then find a job, and I can't pay for both college and a marriage so soon."

"Oh, we can handle it." I say, keeping my best façade of sarcasm.

And he does not buy it.

"Take him out this afternoon, and I strongly recommend for you guys to keep it hidden from uncle North."

"Keep what hidden?" I say, lifting a brow.

"I'm serious Jackson," He states. "You two have been secretive, I noticed. How long have you two been together?" There is a hint of annoyance on his voice, but I have to pretend I can't notice it.

"A couple months." I say, my voice sharper than what I planned it to be.

"No need to be skittish on me," He says. "I'm just curious. You two hid it quite well."

"When did you find out?" I ask, my heart still rushing from the news of his discovery.

"Last weekend." He says simply. "I mean, I know there are those bromance things and shit but for you to use him as your reason to stay at your mom's house after what happened to…" He stops himself before mentioning her name. "I thought you would want to go away from there as fast as you could, but you stayed there just because of him."

I keep myself quiet, mostly shocked that he is not angry about my relationship with Hiccup. Now that is a twist to the better.

"I'm not going to lie to you and say I was completely okay with it at first… It's not everyday you realize your only son likes the same… gender, or…"

"Okay, I get it." I'm beating red.

"But I can see how much this boy is helping you. And _that_ is more important for me." He says, and I let go of a breath I didn't even know I was holding. "You love him, don't you?"

I look down, thinking about Hiccup as I nod, grinning.

"Yeah, I do."

My dad smiles as well. "Then now I'm officially okay with it," He finishes. "Just try not to be so secretive from now on, I'm pretty sure your mom must have realized by now as well."

"Oh come on…"

"Perhaps Nana Overland might be still oblivious…"

I throw a pillow at him.


	32. Chapter 32

**Your comments are getting better and better xD big thanks to coeur de lune for all the support!**

 **Just droping this here, dears... coming out to your family can be a bitch sometimes... specially when your moms highly Christian. AND your crush is named Christian. And she knows him ever since his a baby... and he's the cutest guy ever.. And he hates you.**

 **So don't come out, and don't fall in love (for four years now)**

 **Thirty-Two**

The small town of Folsten is a thirty minutes drive from Nana Overland. The ride is quiet, but honestly, we don't really have anything to say right now. Just each other's company is enough for us. The pine trees run backwards around us, the snow shining as the sunlight flashes through.

If there is one good thing about Folsten is its quietness. The real good old American style town where everyone knows everyone and secrets are inexistent. Much smaller than Burgess; much slower than Burgess; and let's be honest, I'm home.

"So, ready for the tour?" I say, faking a northern accent that makes Hiccup laugh. "Where do you want to go?" I ask.

Hiccup shrugs. "I don't know, where would you like to take me?"

I give a sly smirk. We're crossing the drawbridge over the river, downtown Folsten already visible after the river bank, surrounded by pine trees and the snow. I park the car on a small street near downtown.

"So, now you drove me here, can you tell me where are we going?" He asks as he stands up from his seat, stepping into the cold air.

I walk around the car, reaching for his arm, lacing it with mine before heading to the pier. "We, my dear friend" he lifts a brow at the word friend, almost daring my not to finish the sentence. "In every public way," he clicks his tongue with an understanding nod. "Are taking a tour into my childhood. Well, part of it, at least."

He gives me a shut smile.

All around us, there are small joints of snow mixed with dead leaves, the few that last a bit longer at winter. Just waiting for spring to bring them back to life. I imagine if we aren't just like those empty trees, waiting for the heat to bring us back to our colors.

All around us, small orange lights glow through the branches. Even though it is still afternoon, one of the best singularities of a small town.

 _Emma would have loved this_ , I think. And she really would have. I breathe in the scent of winter, and I can almost hear her laugh among the wind.

I smile.

"Someone's a bit spacey." I hear Hiccup next to me. He has this smug grin on his face, but his eyes are locked on me.

"This place reminds me of her." I say. But I'm still smiling. For the first time in a really long time, feeling this close to Emma doesn't tear me in half.

Hiccup realize this. His fingers slip into mine, squeezing them once. I squeeze them back, just feeling how warm and small his hand feels on mine. I pull his hand to my mouth to kiss it only once, slowly. He blushes visibly, looking around to see if anyone has seen us, but this is a small town. Either they know everything already or no one is here. (The second option wins, though.)

I show him everything I can remember. The pier where Emma and me used to play, the small tends where they would sell us candies (some ladies would slip some beneath the tables for us when no one was looking). The ice cream shop is still open, and I ask for Emma's favorite: mixed chocolate with vanilla. She said it was meant to be fair with the flavors. Somehow it makes me chuckle before Hiccup and I start digging in it.

The sky is already of a purple shade when we reach the small pizza joint near the main square. We are in that comfortable silence were none of us has to say anything. We know exactly where we are.

The place is warm, the scent of smoke, fire and pasta flooding our brains.

"Emma loved here." I tell him.

"Tell me something she did not love about this town." Hiccup replies, smirking. It has been a long time since he hasn't been slightly sarcastic when it comes about Emma.

I could let this get to me. But today I don't. The day is ours, right here and right now.

I squeeze his hand as we sit on the furthest table, near some old _artistic_ painting. Just like me, Emma always hated these kind of paintings, where the ink is spilled in random directions and colors. It seems like the easiest thing in the world to do. But once again, I am not the guy who made the picture. Or the guy who bought it. I am just the guy who sees it and keeps his opinion to himself. Art is a funny thing. Hate it. Love it. Be indifferent. But honestly, it is all about having a name. If Picasso himself said that this is amazing, then by definition the world would follow along him.

That is the same for everything in the world it seem, as when a group of four guys seated a couple tables ahead of us lowly say the words "faggots".

Love it or hate it. Not just in art, it seems.

I look at Hiccup, searching in his eyes for the smallest signs of whatever it is, fear, anger or just awkwardness. However, I see only the dorky smile displayed on his freckled face. I dig my fork in my pizza slice, blocking the conversations away from our table.

"We should take it slowly here." He says. "We still have dinner with your family tonight." I nod, rolling my eyes when I think about my family. He notices that, though. "Oh come on, Jack, they can't be so bad."

"And they're not." I reply.

"Then why do you hate them so much?" He points his fork at me before digging it in his plate.

"Dad is the one who hates them. He always gets all annoyed whenever he sees my uncle." I tell him.

Hiccup seems to think for a moment. "And you?"

"I what?"

"Do you get annoyed with them too?"

I think about it, realizing what Hiccup meant. Of course that no, I don't hate them. I dislike the effect they cause on dad. Hiccup must think I am such a hypocrite right now, the little shit.

I end up smiling, shaking my head and looking away from his inquisitive eyes. We both know he is right.

Even though I am still hungry, uncle North always cooks something to bring at those dinners, and he has never been the best cook anyway. Except for his cinnamon rolls, those taste like heaven. I tell that to Hiccup as I leave the money on the table, and he giggles at the thought.

"That would be an interesting taste." He tells me.

When I look at two tables ahead, the guys who whispered " _faggots"_ are gone. I look through the window, hoping to find a group of young men walking away. But I can't see anything.

So on our way to the street, I keep Hiccup close to me as we walk, my head turning to every possible direction as we head to the car across the street.

"Remind me again why I had to park it so far?" I whisper.

"Jack, you're kinda starting to freak me out." Hiccup says. "Anything happened?"

"Nothing, I just want to get in." I reply, too fast. He knows I'm tense. "I'll explain as soon as we're in the car, I promise." I tell him. "But let's hurry."

So without another word, he does just that. Our steps near walking, near running, as we head towards dad's car. And just one block ahead, I recognize those guys, dressed in black, the reckless posture as they yell things one another.

One of them looks at us.

"Wow, look who it is." I can hear his yells from here.

"Let's go." Hiccup's voice is shaken, I let go of him as he sprints to the passenger seat.

The other guys start yelling at us now as they realize who we are. I keep my head down. Breathe in, breathe out. Just get out of here. They are not coming our way. I press the key button and the doors unlock with a muffled noise.

"Hey there, faggots." The yells are getting higher.

"Just get in, Jack." Hiccup's voice warns me.

And in a swift motion, I slip inside the car, twisting the key and starting the engine. They are only a block ahead of us. They won't be able to do anything if we go fast enough.

But just as the car moves forward, I hear a glass bottle shattering near us. They scream.

I speed up before they get to throw anything else, but not before I get that two seconds adrenaline when you get to do any inhuman thing you imagine. That is when I throw the car over a hole on the asphalt, the water in it splashing on them.

I can hear their curses and their yells. I won.

"How did you know they would follow us?" Hiccup asks me, worry dripping on his voice.

"They were at the pizza place," I tell him. "One of them said _faggot_ when we came in. I didn't know they would come at this street, though."

"Well, it's over now." He says, barely louder than a whisper.

I look at him. He breathes heavily. We are crossing the drawbridge. I slow down a bit, my hand reaching to him when I see that the road is nearly empty.

"Hey." I tell him. "It's okay, we're fine." He looks at me, nodding, but still pushing his breaths.

"I know." He speaks lowly. "Just let's try not to go through it again."

I laugh. If we lived in a world after people, then maybe this wouldn't happen. But we live among the worst specie on the planet, and we are going to be hated somewhere, again and again. And the really messed up thing about it is that there is absolutely nothing we can do.

"If we can, we will." I tell him, a promise as empty as the ones I made to Emma.

The ones I can't keep.

 **So that's it for this chapter! Themes are getting more mature now, if that's even possible, so it'll be a blast when this story is over... not anytime soon tho xD**

 **Also, follow me on my instagram! /hgoallan - lots of tumblr like stuff**


	33. Chapter 33

**Please, please, PLEASE don't kill me, I'm already dying trying to get this story straight. Or not straight at all. Bad pun, okay, ouch. A lotta things just happened, I'm out of BYU, I quit Mormon, I began a YouTube Channel... I don't even know what to do of my life BUT I'm keeping my stories, thank you very much. Please comment!**

* * *

 **Thirty-Three**

We stop midway to the house into a small deli and buy those big cans of peaches for Nana's Overland special recipe. When we arrive back at Nana Overland, the smell of fresh meal escapes the windows and penetrates deep into the walls. It entrances me into that sweet feeling as if I was stepping into my twelve year old self.

As Nana Overland swings her arms around the kitchen and cast her magic on the pans, dad makes his breathing exercises, the one we learnt from mom.

"Hey" I announce, barely getting a wave from him, but a warming hug from Nana Overland. "We got those peaches you asked for." I lift the plastic bag to my eye level.

"Thank you, dear…" She says as she grabs the package. Her eyes keep trailing around the room, trying to set all of her thoughts in order before she even takes the next step forwards.

She turns and goes back to cooking. For a moment I stare in awe as she can make a hundred different recipes without even look to a recipe book but she can't remember what happened to Emma whenever her name is mentioned.

Shaking my head, I start to walk away joking about how I am an absolute disaster at the kitchen, and when she laughs, I see a spark of the Nana Overland that would never miss a detail when I was younger.

Hiccup is sitting in the living room, his eyes glued to his phone. I sit next to him, my hand landing on his left knee, sure that no one is near us to see it.

He looks at me with a shy smile before asking, "How long until your relatives get here?"

"In an hour," I reply, grabbing the remote from the coffee table. "Maybe sooner."

I shuffle through the channels, landing on old cartoons that get Hiccup entranced for a while. Or at least I thought so until I feel his fingers grabbing mine from between our legs. I give it a light squeeze, peeking his face when his eyes are still glued to the TV screen.

When they arrive, there is that sudden commotion of fixing those last details, adjusting our clothes, fixing our faces for the visits, setting up welcoming masks: we're ready.

Hiccup tugs on his sweater, trying to make himself more presentable and I feel the enormous urge to say that he is beautiful. I can't do this now.

Aunt Anna steps in the entrance hall, her big feathered coat hanging over her shoulders as she smiles at dad. He doesn't know this, but I actually like aunt Anna when we are alone. She's not rude, or uncaring.

My cousins come next. Aster's shoulders are above my head, and I am nowhere near being a short guy, but the way he has always been taller is more evident after this last growing spurt. As always, his smile flashes through the room, his nose nearing the ceiling as he to me and shakes my hand.

"Hey, cousin!" He says, brightly.

I nod. "How long, Aster."

In his eyes, I can see that he doesn't want me here. Happens in the best families, I guess. He rubs his hands on his jacket to clean the sweat.

Cara comes next. Her bright green eyes and perfect frame, like the ones you'd expect to see in supermodels, as she claps her heels in a straight line to greet me as well. 5'9 tall, she smells like money and expensive perfumes. Emma could easily have grown up to be this girl. There is no remark here. She is beautiful.

And then comes uncle North. I can _feel_ my dad's nerves as he steps in, his boots echoing on the floor like if blasting a shockwave. Even taller than Aster, big as a rhino and joyfull as Christmas.

A big grin as he greets my father, and even bigger when he greets me, looking straight into my eyes because he knows it is not okay. And the sad thing is, I would have liked Uncle North in another life. If anything had came out differently.

* * *

Dinner is the basic. Sit down, wait and discard conversations at ease. Cara snatches her phone from her pocket and snaps a picture from her plate, and while I stare at it, Hiccup chokes in his laughter, hiding his grin because this _is_ stupid, but who doesn't?

"So, Jack," Uncle Anna speaks up from across the table. "How is school?"

"Doing fine" I reply. I can't be skittish on a family dinner, but I wish I could. "History is still a bummer, but Hiccup's helping me with that."

I can see Hiccup's look on my peripheral vision, wide eyed as he begs me not to direct the subject to him.

Too late.

"Have you boys decided which college to apply?" Aunt Anna asks.

Here's the thing about high school: We are not meant to learn anything truly valuable about ourselves in there. School, college, work, retirement. That's how things go, as a descending tunnel with big jumps in the middle when we are supposed to hold on to whatever it is, or brace ourselves in free fall. For the first time, I let myself think about how none of this is truly fair.

I am about to answer when Hiccup cuts in:

"I'm planning on doing engineering." He says. "NYU has an interesting program for next year."

Everybody cheers. And suddenly, I am aware of how Hiccup is the best of us two. People freely love him, and he doesn't even have to try hard for it.

Unlike me. And he doesn't even know it.

"So, tell me, Hiccup," Aster begins. "What happened to your leg?"

A dead silence rise on the table.

"I saw the metal of the prosthesis, anything interestin' that went on?"

"Aster…" Aunt Anna censures him, but Hiccup is not fazed by it.

"It's alright. I was on a car crash, it's been a while now."

I turn my head to my father, but I immediately lock eyes on him, and I see him shaking his head so subtly that I understand: they don't know what happened.

"That sucks, how long until you were back on walkin'?"

Good. If the conversation sticks on Hiccup, the topic may be avoided.

"A couple months." He said. "But I'm still learning how to do the basic stuff. Like climbing stairs. Jack's been helping me a lot as well, so it's going well."

There is an 'aw' across the table. Things like "I'm sure you'll be back to normal in no time" or "just keep up on working out". I look at Hiccup, and also find him staring back at me. For a moment, there is this silent connection between us, as if he knew how to avoid the topic.

Then I look at Aster, and also find him looking _right back at me_. He makes no sudden movements, nor give any signals, but his eyes are stuck on mine and for a moment, he _knows_ everything. I gulp.

Then North goes: "Who else was in the car with you?"

…Fuck.

"I think I'll get some more pudding…" Standing up with a bowl in hands, I suddenly announce. "Who else wants some?"

Hiccup raise his hand next to me, showing his empty bowl. Then he looks at me, and shuts a quick smile, in an effort to avoid the question.

"Hiccup?" Aster insists, and I hold my hand from reaching the knife in front of me.

"Oh, well…" Hiccup turns back at him, as if he got distracted. "Can we change subject? Not a nice talk on table, if you know what I mean…"

"I guess I'll want one as well…" Anna says, and raises her bowl, and with a nearly invisible nudge, makes Cara raise hers as well.

In Nana Overland's kitchen, I nearly throw the bowls in the sink, breathing heavily and clenching my fists not to. I breathe in, then out. Count to ten, then a hundred. And then I feel someone else's presence in the room.

"Hey." Aster's voice is low, nearly a purl. "Sorry about that."

I shake my head. "It's fine." I reply, my hands shaking as I try to keep myself focused enough not to put the wrong deserts in the bowls.

"So… shitty what happened." Aster says. "I'm sorry about your sister."

I don't freeze, but I could. "Thanks." There are rocks nearly falling off my mouth.

"How long have you two…?" Aster asks, and now I really freeze. "I mean, you and that Hiccup?"

"Wow, we're not…"

"No need to lie, it's nearly written on your foreheads." Aster says that so loosely while he helps me placing the pudding that the air suddenly feels lighter.

I look down. "Just don't comment on it." I tell him.

"Chill, I'm not gonna snitch on ya." He says.

I nod, all my embarrassment still condensing into this monstrous beast inside my chest.

"So, how long?" He insists.

"A few months." I reply, my voice is still low.

"Must be the stressin' part now, right?" He screws his face as if daring himself to speak, one eye closed. "I mean, I'd be literally holdin' on to him for dear life."

"What you mean?" I ask.

"I mean…" He starts, putting his hands inside his pockets as if the air in the kitchen could cut them out. "Ya move, he watches, if I tell you anythin' then he nearly blurts out the answer for ya." His hand moves from his pocket to the back of his neck, scratching. "As if ya'll were foreseein' everythin' the other does, it's maddenin'!"

"What's so maddening about it?" I ask, and I have to watch out for my voice not to go too high.

"It's just… I'm sorry, I'm probably not the best person to talk about it," he steps back, staring at the floor, and I listen. "I had a girlfriend once, her name was Lilly. Her mom went through some crap and her parents got' divorced. We were together already, so of course I stood with her through it all, but… then it came a moment when I was no longer enough to fill the void, ya know?" His eyes jump at me, and suddenly I realize just how greyish they are. "We weren't fightin' about it, but I felt it. She held on too tight I guess, it was suffocatin'. For both of us. And not because I didn't care about her, but perhaps because I cared way too much. I don't know, we'd bang, we'd go out and do stupid shit, but… it was just too much."

I stay quiet, just absorbing.

"It's been months now, I don't even know exactly where she is or what she's doing, but… don't ya ever worry if maybe ya'll aren't holdin' too tight?"

I roll my eyes. "We're fine." But Aster keeps looking at me. "Look, I don't know what your ex's parents have anything to do with me, alright? My sister fucking died." It's rude, but I say it so lowly, and surprisingly my voice is so calm that he doesn't even flinch. "We're looking out for each other; we'll be just… fine. Just stay quiet about it."

Aster looks down, nodding. "Well, I wish for the best, mate."


	34. Chapter 34

YES, A DOUBLE UPDATE BC U GUYS DESERVE IT AND BC IM AN IDIOT THAT LOVES YALL 3 Short, but important.

 **Thirty-Four**

When I get back to the table, earthquakes form under my steps. I can feel every glass shaking and glistening at each shock waves. I sit down next to Hiccup.

"So, Jack." Uncle North starts. "Have you found a nice girlfriend already?"

Again, I hear Hiccup's choked laughter.

"Not yet… I'm not thinking about it lately, I'm just letting things happen." I say, still pushing my chair under me.

"Oh well, when I was at your age, boys wouldn't waste any time to find a lady." He states. "I had dated half the school alright-"

"Love!" Aunt Anna cuts him, but there is a glint of amusement on her eyes.

"None of them had nothing on you, love," Laughter erupts from the table. Aster rolls his eyes, Cara smiles to herself, their parents professing their love to each other, and again I am aware of the rip on my family. And I envy them.

Is it really that wrong to feel this way?

The dinner is supposed to go smoothly. Dad talks about science, Uncle North says nobody cares about science. Dad pretends he doesn't care when all his work is tagged as garbage. It doesn't matter. None of it matters.

I bring the napking up to my mouth and pretend I am cleaning the oil from the corner of my lips while Hiccup does the same. For a moment I think that Aster is right, because I moved, and then he moved. Like a mirror. I smile.

Hiccup is mine. And I am his.

"Excuse me," I say, and ignore any comment that asks me to wait before walking out of the kitchen. My plan to drop a chandelier over anyone's heads still sounds wonderful, but sadly it'll not happen until I'm capable of doing so without leaving any witnesses.

When we are clear of everyone's eyes, Hiccup's hand closes around mine and he follows me closely until we have reached our guest room.

"Finally out." He says. "I was getting so uncomfortable,"

I chuckle, stopping in front of him until our foreheads connect. "I wanted this to be a private thing." I say.

"They're not all that bad."

"You saw nothing yet," I mock, and he leans depper into me, prepping my neck with kisses. I moan. "Hiccup…"

He starts pulling me towards the bed, his finger grabbing the string of my hood where he knows I'm giving in, until he sits on the edge of the bed, his hands moving up to my hips so he's facing my groin.

His fingers start working on my belt.

"Hiccup…" I say, even though I'm hardening, I'm also aware of the gathering happening right beneath our feet. How is he even feeling so excited through all this?

He looks at me, his warm fingers lifting my shirt, exposing my skin and releasing my cock, and he knows I'm not fighting. But as we do it, I am aware of one thing. Whenever we had sex before, I wanted love, and I wanted Hiccup. But now is the first time that he makes the first move, and now is the moment when he wants me. I should feel happy, or blissful, I should let go and enjoy the moment. Or just focus on him, my focus _is_ on him.

The truth is, while we have sex, all I feel is used.


	35. Chapter 35

**Thirty-Five**

The way back to Burgess feels empty. For some reason I take shotgun while Hiccup sleeps across the backseat. Dad is silent all the way, peaceful. Eventually, I fall asleep as well.

When I wake up again, we're home. It's way past midnight, and my eyes burn. Dad hugs me before I jump out of the car, and he promises to visit the following week.

I help Hiccup carrying his stuff to his room, silently so he won't wake his parents. When we cross the street again to my place, we barely have time to undo any packing before he collapses on my bed. I stare at his form, somehow wondering on his sleeping form.

I love Hiccup. I love the shape of his body, his scent, his structure. The way his shoulder blades are pointy for being so skinny, the way his wrists are so thin I could wrap all of my fingers around it. His freckles that cover most of his skin.

How has this last time we had sex made me feel so self-conscious? His presence right now is killing me. At the same time I want him so far from me, I also want to eat him. Like joining our bodies and turning us into one.

I turn off the lights.

* * *

When I wake up again, I'm in the couch. I hear the rain pouring outside the windows, and the dim light tells me it's early in the morning. I should be getting ready for school. A blanket was thrown over me sometime through the night.

I get up slowly, allowing the dizziness fade as I step towards the stairs. Hiccup is still asleep in my room, snoring lowly. I don't remember when it was the last time we slept apart. Everything is in this faded shade of grey and blue, and the thin light that peeks out of the window gives this majestic scenery of the room.

I don't think, I just do it, my hands reaching to my pocket to pick up my phone, turning the camera on and snapping a picture. There are thin flecks that break through the image and I take a while to realize they are dust, floating towards the air. I wonder if they were alive, if they knew where they're going. If they find comfort in not having any control to their fall. If they ever fall. Perhaps their entire life spam is always falling and falling and falling. The picture looks nice.

I step closer to the boy, close enough so I can smell his scent. Grapes, clean clothes, a metallic smell that emanates from his hair. Leaning close, but never touching him, I just look. I look at his nostrils moving, breathing in and out, in and out. His eyes are so steady, peaceful, the edge of his eyelids glimmer in the dark. And his lips, so reddish and thin, if not a bit dry. I could stare at him forever.

Maybe isn't this the way it is supposed to be? I don't regret doing anything with him, but perhaps the way I adore him seems more pure when he is asleep. It's a harsh contrast against what we did only yesterday. How lustful his eyes were when he took over. I was his last night, entirely his.

I take another picture, this one perfectly closed on his sleeping face, his freckles showing slightly out of focus, but I save the picture.

I lean in to him, and this time I allow myself to kiss his cheeks before resting my arm on the area of the mattress near him, laying my head over it and just staying close to him, where his scent climbs up my nostrils and I feel literally drunk in him.

Love is weird. I want to swallow him up, as if trying to make our bodies into a single being, but I at the same time, I think about what Aster said just yesterday, about squeezing too hard. I push this thought away. What I have with Hiccup are sparks, roses and love lines floating around our kisses. I kiss his forehead.

A crack forms where my lips touch him.

* * *

School is dulling. The corridors, the people, the voices, the fluorescent lights that blink in the halls, on and off, on and off. We arrive sometime during second and third class, so most of the corridors are empty, except for that one jock that is too cool for class. My first class is trig – failed; - And I leave Hiccup by his class first.

As I walk away, the cloud of thoughts forms and emanates inside my brain, fogging my vision and everything I do is on autopilot. When I reach the classroom, though, I have the unnerving feeling that every eye is on me.

"Late, mister Haddock," I hear, and I nearly stop. He said Overland, but the letters that flew from his mouth curled and twirled all the way to my ears in the wrong order.

He said Overland. I nod to him, and nobody really makes any comments, so that is unnerving. I walk slowly, all the way to the last roll of chairs, pulling mine and sitting with my usual frown. I heard Haddock.

"Icarus," He restarts his lecture. I capture fragments of his words. " _Flew too close to the sun-"_ I am by the window, and I can see the sun flaring over the hills from here. Everything is green and grey. It feels cold, it _looks_ cold. " _Close enough to the heat._ "

I think of Hiccup and his freckles. I kissed every single one of them just this morning. _"His wings melted,"_ I leaned in to him, we had sex just yesterday. Why is that so important?

" _He fell to his death,"_ I kissed him. I fucked him senseless, just yesterday. I was his; he took me so far;

 _"Or did he get burned to ash…"_

We were so hot, so _hot_ …

I didn't realize I was biting my lips until I taste blood on my tongue. I am biting myself so hard that I can see the red reflecting in the glass.

When class is over, I can still see the stars hanging around my eyesight. I walk slowly, but still think that I'm not going slow enough.

Suddenly I realize that I was not overthinking too much when all pairs of eyes are locked on me. I look around, familiar but hating the feeling that I am being exposed. My head sinks between my shoulders. I reach my locker, and that's when I hear his steps. For a moment, I imagine that it is Hiccup, but I look up to see Jake Hall coming up to me, a mischievous grin stressing his features.

This is the guy that everyone knew he was gay before he even had to come out. Drama club, book clubs and the fucking school paper. He walks towards me, his award winning smile that screams that he is about to get another prize. Suddenly I understand why everyone's looking at me.

"I heard that there is another member in our valley then." He snakes his arm around my shoulders, and I fight the urge not to punch it off.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I reply, looking by the corner of my eye. Jake smiles.

"Oh, no need to lie at this point, Jackie, we all know."

"Stop calling me Jackie," I warn him, shaking his arm off.

He takes a step aside, gulps. "Come on, Jack, it's okay, really-"

"What exactly is okay, Jake?" I stop walking, crossing my arms in front of me, and hoping he won't answer. Please, don't answer.

"You don't know?" He asks, as if restricting himself.

I look around, and there are at least ten people staring back. "Know what?"

If I had punched his face just a second ago, his expression would be just as perplexed. He snatches his phone, swiping the screen for a bit before turning it to me. "I'm sorry, dude, I thought you knew."

I take the phone, looking at myself on a video, leaning towards a locker. Another pair of hands circle my shoulders, and I instantly stop breathing while I watch me and Hiccup turning ever so slightly towards the camera, kissing each other so fiercely we could be eating the other's mouth.

Jake's cold fingers gingerly take his phone back, and he places another hand on my shoulder. "It's been running over all weekend," he says. "Jesus, man, don't you ever use your phone?"

I can't breathe. I can't even think properly. I got to find Hiccup.

I walk away. Jake doesn't even try to step closer. I can hear his heels turning while he mutters to some girls, " _I tried."_

When I find Hiccup, he is standing on the corridor. For a moment I think this is about to be like in those movies when the girl runs to the boy's arms and they circle each other in a comforting hug.

It's not the case. He grabs my wrist, not my hand, pulls me behind him all the way to the park entrance, into the cold.


	36. Chapter 36

**Chapter Thirty-Six**

"They know." He tells me. I close my eyes, leaning against my car. "They filmed it, Jack," His voice shakes.

"I know." I reply, my head sinking between the insides of my elbows. "I've seen it."

Hiccup turns his back at me and stares at the building. He does that thing, when he crosses his arms and ignores me and I know he's angry. When he turns back his eyes are glassy.

I find it too hard to stare back at him, so I stare at the floor, my eyes roaming through the piles of snow that form slowly, where only last week he was knocked down by the jocks from the baseball team. And now I'm angry.

Stupid/freak/stupid/weird/stupid/useless/stupid/idiot/stupid/

Ugly/stupid/loser/stupid/nerd/stupid/faggot/faggot/

What makes me angrier is the fact that there is absolutely nothing we can do. Nowhere to hide, no one to lie to. And this feeling is gut wrenching, like having someone tying your arms around your back and shoving needles inside your throat. If your arms were free, you could fight back. But now there is nothing to do but feel your insides being ripped open.

"What now?" he asks the question for which there is no answer. I look at him, and we're both terrified. "My parents… They can't know." He cries.

"You'll be fine." I say. "They'll never know a thing."

"How can you tell?!" Hiccup shrieks, slapping my hands away from his face. "You're not the one with the messed up parents here, I am." He says, "My mom could live with that, my father would _kill_ me if he finds out!"

"He won't, Hiccup." I try holding him by his shoulders. "We'll be careful."

"If we come out now…" He starts, still uneasy.

"We're already out."

"I don't want that." He says, and I step back. His eyes open wide just after the words come out, and he realizes what he just said.

"What is it that you want, Hiccup?" I ask him. "Okay, I wasn't planning for us to be found out, alright? I wasn't planning for someone to film us, I wasn't planning to chop off your leg-"

"Don't go that far!" His hands push me away, and we are standing on that thin thread before keeping things steady and dropping them off the cliff. "This is not about the accident."

"Everything is about the accident, can't you see that?!"

"I was there too, I see it just fine!" He snaps back. "In fact we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that goddamned crash."

"Tell me you regret this now?" I am daring him to say yes. Part of me wants him to.

"Well, we wouldn't have done anything if it wasn't for it now, would we? We wouldn't have dated, we wouldn't have been caught."

"Oh, I'm sorry, it's my fault now. Emma, your leg, us, that's all my fault as well!"

Tears are trickling down Hiccup's face. "Emma had nothing to do with this, I-I loved her as well. This is about us!"

"Do you regret being with me, yes or no?" I ask him, and we know I mean finality. He stutters. "Yes or no?!"

"Jack…" He is crying. Or perhaps I am crying, I can't tell. I want him to cry. "I don't…"

"Yes or no?!" I demand.

"No." He spits _and_ stops crying. That defeats me entirely. "But this is…" He gestures all around, and we know every last bit of invisible matter around us is overwhelming. "I am tired too." He says. "I am tired, and I don't want to…"

Silence. And this time I don't know what he wants.

"From all this mess, _you_ were the only good thing that has happened to me." I tell him.

There is no reply. He stares at the ground, the snow isn't falling over us, but it is hanging on air, thin flecks of white that don't go neither up nor down. "Let's make things easier, Hiccup, I'll leave. And then there is nothing they can threat you with, does that make you feel safer?"

I am not daring him, not this time. We know that whatever he says – or doesn't say – will mean something. And I don't want to go. I don't want you to let me go, Hiccup.

"Okay."

* * *

 **Please don't hate me, I know I'm taking too long, but I think this story is nearly over to be honest... I dunno, Sorry this chapter is so short xC  
I already have 50K words for my next big HiJack - it'll be a Harry Potter crossover with a weird... timeline I guess (?) Has anyone read The Cursed Child? anyways, the new story is The Guardian of Shadows - COMING SOON**


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